List May 2017

16th-century voyage literature 1. BARROS, João de (1496-1570)-ULLOA, Alfonso de, transl. (d. 1570). L’Asia del S. Giovanni di Barros, Consigliere del Christianissimo Re di Portogallo… nella quale oltre le cose appartenenti alla militia, si ha piena cognitione di tutte le Città, Monti, & Fiumi delle parti Orientali, con la descrittione de’ paesi, & costumi di quei popoli. Nuovamente di lingua Portoghese tradotta. Dal S. Alfonso Ulloa. Venice, Vincenzio Valgrisi, 1562. a classic of

Two volumes in one, 4to (203x148 mm). (10), 200; (8, of which the last is a blank), 228 leaves. The second part opens with a separate title-page: Dell’Asia la seconda deca del S. Giovanni di Barros. Italic type with woodcut initials, printer’s device on both titles. Early 18th-century half calf, gilt spine with lettering-piece, panels covered with a nice colored paper, marbled edges (slightly worn and rubbed, corners and top of the spine damaged). At the last leaf verso is a long ownership’s note by a certain Leonida Antonio Falgidi from S. Polo Sabino (Rieti), dated November 24, 1706. First title-page soiled, some staining especially at the beginning and at the end of the volume, all in all a good copy. FIRST EDITION, second issue (the first issue bears the date 1561), of the first Italian version of Barros’ first and second ‘Decades’, in the only separately published translation of the sixteenth century. The first book is dedicated by the translator Alfonso de Ulloa to Guglielmo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua (the dedication is dated Venice, August 18, 1561); the second book opens with a dedication, dated Venice, October 15, 1561, addressed by Ulloa to the Portuguese gentleman Duarte Gomez (cf. N. Lepri, Appunti sul ‘camino della virtù’ di Alfonso de Ulloa, in: “Il viaggio della traduzione: atti del convegno, Firenze, 13-16 giugno 2006”, M.G. Profeti, ed., Florence, 2007, p. 64). João de Barros was the official court chronicler of King John III and chief administrator

of the Casa da Índia, the company in charge of the overseas spice trade. His position gave him access to military and administrative documents relating to the Portuguese colonies in Asia and Africa. His magnum opus, the Décadas da Ásia, follows the structure of Livy’s ‘Decades’. The first Decada appeared in 1552, the second in 1553. The third was published a year after the publication of Ulloa’s translation and therefore it was not translated from Portuguese for a long time. A fourth final Decada, left incomplete, was published posthumously in 1615. “Their success was immediate, especially abroad - in Portugal, like other historians of recent events, he was accused of partiality and unfairness - copies soon became extremely rare, the first two ‘Decades’ were translated into Italian before the third appeared, and Pope Pius IV is said to have placed Barros’ portrait (or bust) next to the statue of Ptolemy. Barros had prepared himself very thoroughly for his task… Yet he read everything, pored over maps and chronicles and documents from the East, and even bought a Chinese slave to translate for him. With this enthusiasm, his unfailing sense of order and proportion, and his clear and copious style he necessarily produced a work of permanent value. His manner is lofty, even pompous, worthy of the great events described. If his history is less vivid and interesting than Castanheda’s, that is because he wrote not as an eyewitness [only the account of the Portuguese fleet leaving Lisbon is firsthand] or actor in them but as Court historian” (A.F.G. Bell, Portuguese Literature, Oxford, 1922, pp. 193-194). Barros’ ‘Decades’ soon became a classic of voyage literature. They contain references to Columbus and the Americas, but they chiefly deal with Portuguese discoveries in the period between 1415 and 1539. They include the African voyages and the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope; the voyages of Vasco da Gama, Bartholomeo Diaz, Francisco and Alfonso d’Albuquerque, Pedro Cabral, Nuno da Cunhas, and others; the activities of the Portuguese in India, with descriptions of Goa, Malacca, Java and the kingdom of Deccan, and also references to China. “In his ‘Prologue’ [not present in the Italian edition] to the first Década, João de Barros presents an outline account of how he came to write the work. He notes that already in 1520 he had asked the king Dom Manuel to allow him to embark on the project, showing him his text on the emperor Clarimundo as a sample of his style. The king had approved of the matter, but progress had been slow. His successor,

Dom João III - to whom the prologue is addressed - had given Barros a series of administrative charges that had complicated matters; but as one of these had to do with the Casa da Índia, it had also allowed him to have access to letters and correspondence that were directly relevant to the task of chronicling. Barros thus seems to have spent the late 1520s and the bulk of the 1530s preparing this work, of which a first draft (or so he claimed) was ready about 1539. The work was explicitly conceived as one of armchair scholarship, distinct from anything that came from the pen of a Fernández de Figueroa, a Castanheda, or a Correia. The chronicler intended to bring together five sets of materials: older histories such as that of Zurara; the letters and papers normally generated by the Portuguese expeditions to Asia (and to a more limited extent those of the Spaniards) and their administration there; oral accounts gathered from those participants who returned alive, and to whom Barros had privileged access; written accounts in Portuguese, whether of travel or geographical surveys of a sort that were becoming increasingly common by the 1530s, some of which were spontaneous in composition and others solicited by Barros himself; and finally, written materials in Asian languages. It is the last of these that particularly distinguishes Barros from Correia and Castanheda and that made him a model for a certain number of later writers such as Couto” (S. Subrahmanyam, Intertwined Histories: “Cronica” and “Tarikh” in the Sixteenth-Century Indian Ocean World, in: “History and Theory”, 49, no. 4, 2010, p. 135). Edit 16, CNCE4277; Universal STC, 812385; European Americana, 561/6; Sabin, 3647; H. Walravens, China illustrata, Weinheim, 1987, pp. 82-84, no. 4. $ 1,600.-

Rome imprint of Boscán & Garcilaso poetical works 2. BOSCÁN ALMOGÁVER, Juan (c. 1490-1542)-VEGA, Garcilaso de la (c. 1501-1536). Las obras de Boscán y algunas de Garcilasso dela Vega. Repartidas en quatro libros. Ademas que ay muchas añadidas, uan aqui mejor corregidas mas coplidas y en mejor orden que asta agora han sido impressas. Colophon: [Roma], Antonio Salamanca, 1547. rare

8vo (153x98 mm). 271, (1 blank) leaves. Woodcut imperial coat-of-arms on the title-page. Contemporary or slightly later vellum over boards, spine with two small raised bands and inked title (below the title are the capital letters “ICO”; a later shelf label is pasted on the front cover). On the title-page later manuscript ownership’s inscription: “Bibliot. Coll. Regien.”. Loss of vellum in the lower part of the spine, small stain on the front cover, title-page a bit soiled, slightly browned throughout, insignificant dampstains in the upper margins of the last 10 leaves, but all in all a very good, genuine copy. RARE EDITION, probably the sixth or seventh, printed in Rome by the Spanish typographer Marco Antonio Martínez, better known as Antonio Salamanca from the name of his hometown, who was active in Rome between 1519 and 1547. Despite the corrections and additions announced in the title, the edition is a faithful copy of the first imprints of the work. The first edition of Boscán & Garcilaso’s poetical works appeared in Barcelona on March 1543, followed by over twenty reprints issued before the end of the century, which testify the incredible success of this poetry collection: Lisbon, 1543; Medina, 1544, 1553; Antwerp, 1544, [1545], 1550, 1554, 1556, 1569, 1570, 1576, 1597; Toledo, 1547, 1558; Lyons, 1549; Venice, 1553; Valladolid, 1553; Estella, 1555; Barcelona, 1554; Granada, 1575; Alcalá de Henares, 1575; Zaragoza, 1577.

Boscán’s poems are divided into three books: the first comprises his work of medieval tradition; the second contains ninety-two sonnets and ten ‘canciones’ in the Italian style; book three includes the Epístola a Mendoza, the allegorical poem Octava rima and the famous poem Leandro, based on the ancient Greek fable of ‘Hero and Leander’ (cf. W. Boutcher, “Who taught thee rhetoricke to deceive a maid?”: Christopher Marlowe’s Hero and Leander, Juan Boscán’s Leandro, and renaissance vernacular humanism, in: “Comparative literature”, Eugene, OR, 52, 1, 2000, pp. 11-52). Book four contains Garcilaso’s poems. Under the influence of Petrarch and the Italian Renaissance poets as well as the Classical authors, Garcialso wrote elegies (Elegías), eclogues (Églogas, including an Égloga a Boscán), canzoni (Canciones), and sonnets (Sonetos), in which he admirably adapts the eleven-syllable line to the Spanish language. The collection was published after Boscán’s death by his widow, Ana Girón de Rebolledo. After Garcilaso’s death in 1536, Boscán had been charged with the task of editing some of his friend’s works together with his own. But he also died a few months before the book was issued on March 1543. The main innovation of this collection and one of the major reasons of its big impact (with all the reactions that followed) lies in the idea itself of publishing together the two most innovative Spanish poets of the time. Despite its posthumous appearance, the edition was carefully prepared by Boscán. Even a most superficial analysis of the first 1543 edition (which is strictly followed by the present) reveals a clear editorial strategy. The disposition of the texts reflects, in an organic and consistent manner, the different stages of Boscán and Garcilaso poetic career, from the eight-syllable poems of the old Spanish tradition (which are almost completely neglected in the collection) to the newly-introduced Italian verse forms, and shows Boscán’s aim of giving to the collection an international character and the dignity of the Classical and Italian poetry. The collection opens with a programmatic poem to the Duchess of Soma (not accidentally a woman; Boscán’s detractors accused his poetry of being for women, “ser para mujeres”), in which Boscán

expresses his judgment of the previous Spanish lyrics and explains his poetical program, shared with Garcialso, which was followed for more than a century by most of the Iberian poets (cf. P. Ruiz Pérez, Las ‘Obras’ de Boscán y Garcilaso: modelo editorial y modelo poético, in: “Calíope”, vol. 13, no. 1, 2007, pp. 15-44). Juan Boscán Almogávar (Joan Boscà i Almogàver in Catalan) was born in Barcelona somewhere between 1487 and 1492. Around 1507, he moved to the court of Fernando and Isabel, where he became a student of the Italian humanist Lucio Marineo Siculo, who taught him how to translate Italian and Classical poetry into Spanish. In 1522 Boscán was appointed as a tutor to Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba. In this same year, he participated with his close friend Garcilaso de la Vega (whom he had first met at the Spanish court) to the defense of the Isle of Rhodes against the Turkish invasion. Boscán fought against the Turks again in 1532 in Vienna with Álvarez de Toledo. Boscán died on September 1542, while he was working at the publication of his and Garcilaso’s poems (cf. G.B. Kaplan, ed., Juan Boscán, in: “Sixteenth-Century Spanish Writers”, vol. 318: Dictionary of Literary Biography, Chicago, 2006, pp. 14-21). Boscán was the first poet to incorporate hendecasyllable verses into Castilian. Together with Íñigo López de Mendoza, who wrote sonnets in the Italian style, Boscán was one of the first to use the present-day structures of the sonnet in Spanish poetry. It was Andrea Navagero, Venetian ambassador to Spain, who persuaded Boscán to abandon the traditional eight-syllable verses of Spanish poetry (cf. A.J. Cruz, Imitación y transformación: el petrarquismo en la poesía de Boscán y Garcilaso de la Vega, Amsterdam-Philadelphia, PA, 1988). At the Spanish court, in the 1520s, Boscán was also influenced by another Italian ambassador and a friend of Navagero, Count Baldassare Castiglione. Boscán was urged by Castiglione himself and Garcilaso to translate Castiglione’s epoch-making book Il Cortegiano into Spanish; his translation was published in 1534 to great success (cf. M. Morreale, Castiglione y Boscán: el ideal cortesano en el renacimiento español, Madrid, 1959). If Boscán was the pioneer of the new Spanish poetry, there is no doubt that Garcilaso de la Vega was the most influential poet to introduce Italian Renaissance verse forms, techniques and topics to Spain. His poetry was very popular during his lifetime and has continued to be so without

interruption until the present. He had a great influence on all the major subsequent Spanish authors, such as Jorge de Montemayor, John of the Cross, Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Luis de Góngora, and Francisco Quevedo (cf. R.P. Sebold, Garcilaso de la Vega en su entorno poético, Salamanca, 2014). Garcilaso was born in Toledo between 1501 and 1503, the second son of a nobleman who granted him an extensive education and after his death a sizeable inheritance. Garcialso mastered five languages (Spanish, Greek, Latin, Italian and French) and learned how to play many music instruments. In 1520 he joined the imperial guard of Charles V and in 1523 was made a member of the Order of Santiago. Garcilaso took part in most of the campaigns conducted by Charles V in Italy, Germany, Tunisia and France. In 1532, for a short period, he was exiled to a Danube island, where he was the guest of Count György Cseszneky. Garcilaso fought his last battle in France, dying on October 1536 in Nice from an injury sustained in the battle of Le Muy (cf. B. Creel, Garcilaso de la Vega, in: “Dictionary of Literary Biography”, vol. 318: Sixteenth-Century Spanish Writers, G.B. Kaplan, ed., Chicago, 2006, pp. 62-82). Edit 16, CNCE7190; P. Salvá y Mallen, Catálogo de la Biblioteca de Salvá, Valencia, 1872, I, no. 475. $ 8,500.-

on women’s dignity and nobility

3. BRONZINI, Cristoforo (d. 1640). Della dignità, & nobiltà delle donne. Dialogo di Cristofano Bronzini d’Ancona. Diviso in Quattro Settimane; e ciascheduna di esse in Sei Giornate. Vol. I. Settimana prima, e giornata prima [-terza]. Florence, Zanobi Pignoni, 1624 (at the end: 1622). Vol. II. Settimana prima e giornata quarta [-sesta]. Florence, Zanobi Pignoni, 1625. Vol. III. Della dignità, e nobiltà delle donne Dialogo di Christofano Bronzini d’Ancona. Settimana seconda, e giornata ottava. Alle ss. spose novelle. Florence, Simone Ciotti, 1628. Three volumes, 4to (I: 218x156 mm; II: 215x154 mm; III: 220x151 mm). (8), 142, (2), 130, (2), 126, (6) pp. + (2), 143, (1), 143, (1 blank), 130, (22) pp. + (12), 216, (8) pp. Volume 1 is known in two different issues, our copy combines the two issues. On the front fly-leaf of the vol. 3 is a full-page drawing showing an emblem with the initial ‘PLC’; below is the ownership’s inscription ‘Hodie me possidet Sanctes de Tottis’. Bindings in contemporary flexible vellum (a bit stained). Some browning and foxing, dampstains, a few wormholes at the end of vol. 3 involving the back panel and the endleaves, but not affecting the text, the front cover of vol. 3 has slightly shrank, front endleaves of vol. 1 renewed, otherwise a good, genuine copy. RARE FIRST EDITIONS. Bronzini was made cardinal by Pope Paul V in 1615. He then moved to Florence, where he conceived the idea of writing an ambitious work in praise of women. Della dignità et nobiltà delle donne should have originally comprised 24 parts (4 weeks of 6 days each), but the project was never completed. The first six days of the first week were written in 1618 and published between 1622 and 1625, while the first two days of the second week were printed respectively in 1628 and in 1632. Although already approved by the ecclesiastical authorities, the first book was condemned in 1622 “donec corrigatur” (cf. Index librorum prohibitorum, Rome,

1664, p. 38). It is presumable that the condemnation refers to a previous edition, now lost, or that the edition was corrected while still under the press. The work is written in the form of a dialogue. The scene is set in the Medici’s garden in Rome during a hot summer. The interlocutors are six: three women, outstanding for their beauty, virtue and nobility (Margherita from Rome; Vittoria from Mantua; Leonora from Florence) and three men (the Prince of Tuscany; Tolomei from Ferrara, an opponent of women; Onorio, i.e. the author himself as defender of women) (cf. M. Capucci, Bronzini, Cristoforo, in: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, col. 14, 1972, pp. 463-64). All parts of Bronzini’s work are very rare. We are able to offer here the first three volumes. The fourth one, Della virtù e valore delle donne illustri dialogo di Christofano Bronzini d’Ancona. Diviso in quattro settimane; e ciascheduna di esse in sei giornate. settimana seconda, giornata settima, was issued in 1632 by Zanobi Pignoni. Catalogue of Seventeenth Century Italian Books in the British Library, London, 1988, p. 155; G. B. Passano, I novellieri italiani in prosa, Turin, 1878, I, pp. 151-53; Catalogo della Libreria Capponi, Rome, 1747, p. 85. $ 1,500.-

first bio-bibliography of

Calvin 4. CALVIN, Jean (1509-1564)-BÈZE, Théodore de (1519-1605). Commentaires... sur le livre de Iosué. Avec une preface de Theodore de Besze, contenant en brief l’histoire de la vie et mort d’iceluy: augmentee depuis la premiere edition & deduite selon l’ordre du temps quasi d’an en an. Geneva, François Perrin, 1565. 8vo (175x11 mm). (94), 208, (6) leaves. With the printer’s device on the title-page. 19th-century polished calf, spine with gilt ornaments and morocco title-label, gilt edges, hinges a bit weak, some light dampstains, but a fine copy with the entry of ownership of Georges Constantin Naville (1755-1789), pastor and theological writer at Geneva, and with the book plate of Charles-Louis Frossard (1827-1902), minister at Lille and also writer on geology. SECOND EDITION of the commentary on Joshua, Calvin’s dying bequest to the Church, and FIRST EDITION of the revised and augmented version of his biography by Théodore de Bèze. In his last exegetical endeavor Calvin provided a moral model for Reformed believers, one that he hoped would represent the Reformed as people who were law-abiding, morally sound proponents of order and peace (cf. R.A. Blacketer, The Moribund Moralist: Ethic Lesson in Calvin’s Commentary on Joshua, in: “The Formation of Clerical and Confessional Identities in Early Modern Europe”, W. Janse, ed., Leiden, 2006, pp. 149-168; see also M. Woudstra, Calvin’s Dying Bequest to the Church: A Critical Evaluation of the Commentary on Joshua, Grand Rapids, MI, 1960, passim). Calvin started to lecture on Joshua in June 1563 in the Friday congregation and finished his commentary shortly before his death. In the early part of 1564 Calvin’s sufferings (fever, asthma, stone and gout - the fruits for the most part of his sedentary habits and unceasing activity) became so severe that it was manifest that his earthly career was rapidly ending. On February 6, he preached his last sermon, having with great difficulty found breath enough to carry him through it. He was several times after this carried to church, but never again could take any part in the service. With his usual disinterestedness, he refused to receive his stipend, now that he was no longer able to discharge the duties of his office. During his sufferings, however, his zeal and energy kept him in continual occupation, especially with his commentary on Joshua. On April 25, he made his last will, on the 27th he received the Little Council, and on the 28th the Geneva ministers, in his sickroom. He spent much time in prayer and died quietly, in the arms of his faithful friend Théodore de Bèze on the evening of May 27.

Théodore de Bèze, Calvin’s most fervent disciple and his successor as head of the Church of Geneva, accomplished a first version of his account of Calvin’s malady and death, a first attempt to a biography, in August 19, 1564. It was first published at the end of August as a preface to Calvin’s ‘Commentary to Joshua’ in a folio-volume by François Perrin with a comprehensive bibliography of Calvin’s writings. Shortly after it was republished in separate form (probably for the foreign market) as Discours de M. Théodore de Bèze contenant en bref l’histoire de la vie et mort de Maistre Iean Calvin (until early 1565 at least eight imprints are known and it also was translated into Latin, German and English). When the printer François Perrin published a new edition of Calvin’s commentary on Joshua in 1565, he added a new version of the biography “augmentée depuis la première edition et déduite selon l’ordre du temps quasi d’an en an”, retaining also the bibliographical apparatus. Bèze repudiated his authorship pointing to Nicolas Colladon (ca. 1530-1586), chancellor of the Genevan Academy, as author of this new version. “L’auteur sans aucun doute, que ce soit Bèze ou Colladon, a voulu donner de Calvin une image plus vivante. Ce faisant il est aussi plus prolixe. Le récit des derniers jours occupe une place encore plus importante que dans la première redaction. On y retrouve le même sens du detail:... d’un récit à l’autre on notera des changements de date, des versions différentes d’un même évènement, mais surtout l’importance accrue des ‘ultima verba’ de Calvin” (D. Ménager, Théodore de Bèze, biographe de Calvin, in: “Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance”, 45, 1983, p. 246). For Aimé-Louis Herminjard, author of the comprehensive work on the correspondence of the French reformers, it is clearly Bèze’s work: “aucun doute n’est possible: cette seconde édition apparient bien à Bèze, et pour tout un ensemble de raisons: ‘le fonds était à lui; le raccordement des additions avec le text de 1564 ne traduit point une plume étrangère’. Autre argument important: la plupart de ces additions ont été ‘transportées... dans la Vie latine de 1575’ ” (D. Ménager, op. cit., p. 246). “What Beza and particularly Colladon have done is write a much more personalised account of Calvin’s life and work. These elements alter completely the Discours, which has been reordered to fit into this framework. While no biography in the modern sense of the term, the ‘Life’ now conveys more of the specificity of Calvin than Beza’s first account. Removing Beza’s identification of the man with the doctrine and referring the reader to Calvin’s works for the latter, the Beza/Colladon effort substitutes for it a portrait of someone more human but nonetheless sent by God at a particular time” (I. Backus, Life Writing in Reformation Europe: Lives of Reformators by Friends, Disciples and Foes, London & New York, 2016, p. 135). Calvin’s commentary on Joshua of 1565 was printed in two versions: one in-folio and, the present one, in-octavo. In this version were printed, to fill up the preliminary matter, two letters by Calvin: one to Guillaume Farel (May 30, 1540), the other to Pierre Viret (March 8, [1546]). GLN 15/16, no. 713; Index Aureliensis, 130.076; Universal STC, no. 4053; F. Gardy, Bibliographie des oeuvres de Théodore de Bèze, Geneva, 1960, no. 189; R. Peter, J.-F. Gilmont & Ch. Krieger, Bibliotheca Calviniana: les oeuvres de Jean Calvin publiées au XVIe siécle, vol. 3: Écrits théologiques, littéraires et juridiques, 1565-1600, Geneva, 2000, 65/2. $ 2,200.-

Burlesque poem in Bergamasque dialect 5. COSA NUOVA de un mister Bertoli bergamasch vegnud ala Sensa: Elqual tutte cose che ha visto a Venetia. Cosa molto dilettevole. N.pl., n.d. [probably Venice, 1550s]. unknown

8vo (145x93 mm). 4 unnumbered leaves. Large woodcut of a violin player on the title page with the monogram NS, on an empty tablet attached to a tree are added in ink the initials ‘P.G.G.’. Unbound, slightly browned and dampstained, outer right margin of the title-page cut short with the loss of a letter. APPARENTLY UNRECORDED. In the first poem a certain Bertoli (a simpleton from Bergamo) gives an account of what he saw at the Festa and Fiera della Sensa in Venice. In the second poem (printed in two columns), a kind of nursery rhyme, the same Bertoli holds forth about the bad living conditions of the poor, giving the appropriate maxims. The figure of ‘Bertoli di mistro Francisch’ seems to be elsewhere unknown. He was probably a cantimbanco, i.e. a perfomer who played the viola and probably went to the Sensa fair to perform with his group (“Ste’ cun de’ la mia brigada /avì intes le mie vertut”, l. A4r, vv. 16-17). In the first poem he lists the craftsmen who sold their products at the fair, but also mentions the prostitutes and the syphilis, then called ‘French disease’ (“...per trovag ina guazineta (?) / che’l frances no la guastas. / Ho cercat in Ca’ Rampane / e son stat in Frizaria / ho provat quanti putane / che si trova a San Matia”, l. A2v, vv. 23-28). The two here extant poems are written in the Bergamasque dialect, which is the western variant of the Eastern group of the Lombard language and is mainly spoken in the province of Bergamo in central Lombardy. In the sixteenth century Lombard poetry was produced especially at Bergamo and Brescia, and one leading humanist from Bergamo, Giovanni Bressani (1489-1560), left a respectable oeuvre in that dialect (cf. Poesia dialettale dal Rinascimento a oggi, G. Spagnoletti & C. Vivaldi, eds., Milan, 1991, I, pp. 70-72). The Bergamasque dialect spoken by the porters from Bergamo and Brescia had become in those years a comic language also used by some masks of the ‘Commedia dell’Arte’, such as Arlecchino and Brighella (“Ste’ un po’ quiet e lassem di’ / e savì be’ che nu fachì / se strussiem la not e’l dì / per vanzà quae quatrì”, l. A3v, col. B, vv. 2-5). The Festa della Sensa was a feast of the Republic of Venice held on the occasion of the Ascension (in the Venetian dialect, ‘Sensa’), and is still celebrated as a recreation today. It commemorates two significant dates in the Republic’s history; the first being May 9, 1000,

when the Doge Pietro II Orseolo rescued the denizens of Dalmatia imperiled by the Slavs. The aforementioned date marked the onset of Venetian extension in the Adriatic. The second event commemorated took place in 1177 when the Doge Sebastiano Ziani, Pope Alexander III and the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, agreed to the Treaty of Venice, which ended the long standing differences between the Pontificate and the Holy Roman Empire. On the occasion of this festival was held the ceremony of the Marriage of the Sea (‘Sposalizio del Mare’). This ceremony is recreated annually with the Mayor of Venice taking on the traditional role, which was historically executed by the Doge (cf. L. Padoan Urban, Il Bucintoro: la festa e la fiera della Sensa dalle origini alla caduta della Repubblica, Venice, 1988, passim). “In Venice, the most famous fairs – those of Ascension Day and Christmas – produced periodic upswings in a commerce that flourished throughout the year. The fair of the Ascension, in local dialect the ‘Sensa’, lasted for fifteen days. Those who went to the fair were almost all members of the Venetian guilds who had shops in the city, along with the glassmakers of Murano. It seems, in fact, that the participation of the shopkeepers was obligatory and was often considered a burden and unwarranted expense, for habitual customers preferred to visit the regular shops. For the booksellers, the fair of the Ascension was only one more opportunity to sell merchandise... Sales during the fair were largely of low-priced materials, which means that the bookseller realized little profit on them” (A. Nuovo, The Book Trade in the Italian Renaissance, Leiden, 2013, p. 298). It is therefore quite possible that our booklet was also offered for sale at the ‘Sensa’ fair. Apparently the earliest appearance of the violin player is in a work by the popular poet Notturno Napolitano, Opera nuova amorosa, printed in 1518 at Pavia by Giacomo Pocatela (Edit 16, CNCE35327). Here in the tablet appended to a three appears the inscription ‘NOCTURNO’ (mostly cancelled in the later versions). It was used again in an edition of the same work printed in 1520 at Bologna by Benedetto Faelli (Edit 16, CNCE71550) and once more in a Brescia imprint of about 1530 printed by Francesco Riccardi (Edit 16, CNCE38254). The closest variant to the present copy of the violin player woodcut was used in a similar burlesque work also written in the Bergamasque dialect: Desperata: Testame(n) to: & Tra(n)sito de Fratios da Bergem per venturina de val Lugana. Composta per el dottor Farina: Cosa da crepar ridere (a reproduction of which is found in A. Segarizzui, Bibliografia delle stampe popolari italiane nella R. Biblioteca Nazionale di S. Marco di Venezia, Bergamo, 1913, I, pp. 246). The colophon at the end of the imprint reads: “In Venetia per Stefano Bindoni. 1551” (see also Edit 16, CNCE16915). The similarity of the types and ornaments let suppose that our imprint might have been produced by the very same printer, Stefano Bindoni (1529-1599), who was one of the five sons of one of the leading Venetian printers, Agostino Bindoni. Stefano apparently was more a bookseller than a typographer. It seems that only five imprints (between 1548 and 1551) bearing his name, are known and one, undated, printed together with his brother Marco. “As the result of a tip from the Esecutori contro la Bestemmia, the Holy Office searched the storehouse of Stefano Bindoni, a bookseller, and found the anonymous Italian translation of Luther’s Adress to the German Nobility, the sermons of Ochino, and the Sommario della Sacra Scrittura. In Bindoni’s house two or three copies of the Mercurio et Caronte, Erasmus’s Praise of Folly, and some pasquinades were found. Apparently unaware of the true authorship of the Luther title, the Holy Office sentenced Bindoni to penance, including a bread-and-water fast every Friday for a year” (P.F. Grendler, The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 1540-1605, Princeton, NJ, 1977, p. 183). He also had been jailed for having copied, with the intention of printing them, some pieces from the ‘indecent and prohibited’ works (Ragionamenti) of Pietro Aretino. “Gli opuscoli stampati da Bindoni rappresentano un prodotto di stampa popolare a tutti gli effetti e costituirono forse il tentative di avvio di una piccolo azienda indipendente da quella del padre” (cf. Dizionario dei tipografi e degli editori italiani. Il Cinquecento, M. Menato, E. Sandal & G. Zappella, eds., Milan, 1997, p. 143). $ 1,900.-

Scipione Cicala who became the Grand Vizier Sinam Bassà 6. CROCE, Giulio Cesare (1550-1609). Sotterranea confusione sopra la morte di Sinam Bassa, famoso capitano de turchi. Concetto tragico... Bologna, Giovanni Battista Bellagamba, 1596. burlesque drama on the converted

4to (192x132 mm). (20) leaves. Large woodcut vignette on the title-page, depicting Sinam Bassà in front of Charon’s boat at the entrance of the Hell. The “Argomenti” are printed within a typographical border. Modern half morocco with gilt title on the front panel, small repaired hole on leaf D2 minimally affecting the text, otherwise a very good copy. VERY RARE FIRST EDITION (it was reprinted in the same year by Baldini in Ferrara). Croce dedicated his burlesque drama to Marco Sittico Altemps (i.e. the future Bishop and Cardinal Mark Sittich von Hohenems Altemps, 1533-1595, who lived in Bologna for seven years). The dedication is dated Bologna, 20 June 1596. According to A. Cavicchi (Tradizione e gusto spettacolare nella musica a Bologna tra Cinque e Seicento, in: “Una città in piazza. Comunicazione e vita quotidiana a Bologna tra Cinque e Seicento”, P. Bellettini, R. Campioni & Z. Zanardi, eds., Bologna, 2000, p. 123), the text was probably staged. The work was quite successful and reprinted several times until mid seventeenth century. The protagonist of Croce’s drama, Sinam Bassà (Cigalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha), was born as Scipione Cicala in Genoa or Messina around 1545, as a member of the aristocratic Genoese family of Cicala. His father was a corsair in the service of Spain, while his mother is said to have been a Turk from Castelnuovo (Herceg Novi, today). Father and son, captured at the Battle of Djerba by the Ottoman navy in 1560 or 1561, were taken first to Tripoli in North Africa and then to Constantinople. The father was in due course ransomed from

captivity, returned to Messina, where he died in 1564. Scipione was not released, but was inducted into the Ottoman corps of young boys to be trained for imperial service. He converted, as was required, to Islam and was trained in the Imperial palace. He eventually married, first one (1573) and then (1576) another great-granddaughter of Suleiman the Magnificent. He found himself assured of wealth, high office and protection. He became Agha of the Janissaries in 1575 and retained this office until 1578. During the next phase of his career he saw much active service in the long Ottoman-Persian war of 1578-1590. After the peace of 1590, he was made governor of Erzurum and, in 1591, became Grand Admiral of the Ottoman fleet. The Ottomans had been at war with Austria since 1593. He accompanied Sultan Mehmed III on the Hungarian campaign of 1596. In reward for his services, he was made Grand Vizier. In 1604, he assumed command of the eastern front, where a new war between the Ottomans and the Persians had broken out in the preceding year. His campaign of 1605 was unsuccessful. He died in the course of a retreat in December 1605 (cf. T.P. Graf, The Sultans Renegades. Christian-European Converts to Islam and the Making of the Ottoman Elite, 1575-1610, Oxford, 2017, pp. 119-121). “Il componimento in terzine rientra nell’ambito della produzione letteraria contro i terribili Turchi, che godette di una discreta fortuna nel XVI e XVII secolo, e fa riferimento a un personaggio realmente esistito: Sinam Pascià che fu anche gran visir del sultano Selim... Dopo il prologo recitato dalla chimera, comincia un serrato dialogo tra Caronte e Sinam, che infine è costretto a narrare la propria storia; seguono un dialogo con Plutone, che condanna Sinam al fuoco, e un altro con Morgon che illustra i tormenti degli altri pascià precedentemente condannati. Il lament di Sinam ‘...condannato al foco eterno. / Con pena insoportabile, e infinita. / Et espolto nel fondo de l’Inferno’ conclude l’opera” (P. Bellettini, R. Campioni & Z. Zanardi, eds., Una città in piazza. Comunicazione e vita quotidiana a Bologna tra Cinque e Seicento, Bologna, 2000, p. 209). Giulio Cesare Croce, a native of San Giovanni in Persiceto, in the province of Bologna, was the son of a blacksmith. Despite the humble family condition, both his father and his uncle worried about giving him an education. But the tutor to whom his uncle sent him, was more interested in his household than in his pupils’ education, who were forced to do most of the housework. For that reason, young Giulio Cesare returned to the house of his

uncle in Medicina (near Bologna), resumed his apprenticeship as a blacksmith and started to write verses. It was precisely these early verses, mostly burlesque, which made him famous in his district. At the age of 18 he was in Bologna and here, little by little, left his profession to become a songwriter in all respects. He began to wander through fairs, markets, patrician houses, and courts and to tell his stories and songs (mostly drawn from popular anecdotes, accompanying himself on a kind of rudimentary violin. He also had printed his compositions selling the small brochures himself. He had 14 children from his two wives, became very famous during his lifetime, but died in poverty. Croce can be considered one of the most successful self- taught authors in Italian literature. Due to his choices, he was never fully part of the literary groups of his time. To be a literary man in his period meant living at court, having patrons, or else being left to one’s own devices for financial purposes. Croce was never a true literary man in the strictest sense of the word since he preferred laymen audiences to the court. In fact, he was principally a storyteller and a blacksmith and most likely wrote for his own personal satisfaction. As such, his stories and inspiration come from the lower class, from the audiences at the market, who, if able to read, bought his works. The literary production of Croce constitutes a multiform array of more than five hundred pieces of writing. This corpus includes a variety of different genres, from mimetic descriptions of popular life to comedies, madrigals, sonnets, poems in different meters, both in Italian and in dialect (mainly Bolognese) (cf. M. Tetel, Giulio Cesare Croce, ‘cantastorie’ or Literary Artist, in: “Forum Italicum”, IV/1, 1970, pp. 30-38). Edit 16, CNCE 14393; Universal STC, no. 824965; P. Bellettini, R. Campioni & Z. Zanardi, eds., Le stagioni di un cantimbanco. Vita quotidiana a Bologna nelle opere di Giulio Cesare Croce, Bologna, 2009, p. 24; P. Camporesi, Il palazzo e il cantimbanco: Giulio Cesare Croce, Milan, 1994, p. 97; E. Fava, Bibliografia delle opere di Giulio Cesare Croce, S-37b (www.giuliocesarecroce.it); O. Guerrini, La vita e le opera di Giulio Cesare Croce, Bologna, 1879, pp. 466-467, no. 233 (later editions) $ 2,500.-

“parmi ces poésies il y en a de fort libres” (Gay) 7. DAZZI, Andrea (1473-1548). Andreae Dactii Patricii et Academici Florentini Poemata. Florence, Lorenzo Torrentino, 1549. 8vo (142x88 mm). 320 pp. 18th-century calf, gilt back, red edges, some light dampstains and browning, short tear in the last leaf not damaging the text, otherwise a very good copy. RARE FIRST EDITION published by the author’s son Giovanni Dazzi and dedicated to Cosimo de’ Medici. This is followed by a second dedication addressed by Andrea Dazzi to Pietro Soderini. This collection of poems, mostly epigrams and elegies, not only gives important biographical details on the life of the author, but also shows his friendship with many important figures in Florentine life. Among them: Naldo Naldi, Pietro Crinito, Giovanni Rucellai, Alessio Lapaccini, Jacopo Nardi, Luca Albizzi, Niccolò Ridolfi, Lelio Torelli, Angelo Poliziano, and Michele Marullo Tarcaniota. It was the enmity between the Tarcaniota and Poliziano, who had been Dazzi’s mentor, that in the end caused the subsequent break between Poliziano and Dazzi himself. The latter, in a series of very bitter epigrams, attacks Poliziano in his most vulnerable point, that is his immorality, and accuses him of homosexuality (cf. G. Bottiglioni, La lirica latina in Firenze nella seconda metà del secolo XV, Pisa, 1913, pp. 136-144). “Parmi ces [Dazzi’s] poésies il y en a de fort libres... La plupart sont dans le genre de Catulle et de Martial... Cela n’a point empêché ce recueil d’être réimprimé à Paris, en 1554, avec un privilège du roi” (J. Gay, Bibliographie des ouvrages relatifs à l’amour, aux femmes, au mariage..., Paris, 1894, I, p. 782). Andrea Dazzi, a native of Florence, attended the faculty of poetic and rhetoric at the Studio there, and had as teachers Angelo Poliziano, Cristoforo Landino, and Marcello Virgilio Adriani. Still very young, he composed a heroic-comic

poem, Aeluromyomachia, which is printed at the end of the present volume. Later he studied Greek with Ugolino Verino. In 1502 he was offered the position of lecturer of Greek at the local Studio and later he taught poetic and rhetoric at the University of Pisa. Among his students were Pietro Vettori, Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, and Paolo Mini. Around 1520 a serious eye complaint, which caused his blindness, obliged him to give up public teaching. He retired to his villa near Fiesole, where he composed most of his verses. Notwithstanding he occupied some minor public charges and became one of the first members of the Accademia Fiorentina, when it was refounded in January 1541. He himself held some lectures and became ‘censore’ of the academy (cf. W. Rudiger, Andreas Dactius aus Florenz, Halle, 1897, passim). Index Aureliensis, 150.688; Adams, D-164; D. Moreni, Annali della tipografia fiorentina di Lorenzo Torrentino, Florence, 1819, no. XXVI, pp. 78-79. $ 780.-

“Fermes tes fondamens, Copernique, je voy, Mais ie suy le chemin plus batu, quant à moy” (p. 294) 8. DUCHESNE, Joseph, Sieur de la Violette (1544-1609). Le Grand Miroir du monde. Par Ioseph Duchesne Sieur de la Violette, Conseiller & Medecin ordinaire du Roy. Deuxièsme édition, reveue, corrigée & augmentée en divers endroits, & d’un livre entier, par l’Auteur. A la fin de chasque livre sont de nouveau adjoustées amples annotations & observations sur le texte... par S[imon].G[Goulart].S[enlisien]. [Geneva], Heirs of Eustache Vignon, 1593. 8vo (162x103 mm). (24), 654 pp. Lacking the last blank leaf. With the printer’s device on the title-page. Later vellum, manuscript title on spine, small repair to the inner margin of the title-page and the outer margin of another leaf, some insignificant wormholes on a few leaves that only in a few cases slightly touch the text, some occasional light dampstains, margins cut a bit short, but all in all a very good copy (especially considering the poor quality of the paper). FIRST EDITION AUGMENTED with a sixth book and the commentary by Simon Goulart. This metaphysical and chemical cosmology is a poetical account of the universe that begins with God and the creation and proceeds to describe the three worlds: intellectual, celestial and elementary. In his ambitious project Duchesne discusses the heavens, the stars, the angels, and the oceans, as well as the theory of sympathetic action. In the preface of the newly added sixth book, he promised four more books, which however he did not realize. The last of these would describe man and microcosm (cf. D. Kahn, L’interprétation alchimique de la Genèse chez Joseph Du Chesne dans le contexte de ses doctrines alchimiques et cosmologiques, in: “Scientiae et artes: Die Vermittlung alten und neuen Wissens in Literatur, Kunst und Musik”, B. Mahlmann-Bauer, ed., Wiesbaden, 2004, pp. 641-692). The poem is dedicated to Henry of Navarre, and the dedicatory epistle expresses confidence that the poem will be well received, citing the warm welcome accorded to the poet by Navarre upon his last visit to Gascony as evidence that Navarre will also welcome his poem. This is an indication of Duchesne’s attempt to gain a post with Navarre; he was successful in this attempt and thus able to describe himself in the 1593 edition of his poem as ‘Adviser and Physician to the King’.

“In short, natural-philosophical poetry in the style of Du Bartas was one of those Renaissance discourses in which similarity was a central epistemological category, and the similarity between the natural and the societal or political was an important one. Indeed, while the representation of the natural world is justified for these poets by its status as an image of its Creator (as Du Bartas says explicitly and Duchesne’s title suggests), it seems also to be validated by its ability to provide lessons for human society. The Grand Miroir was first published in 1587. Then, in 1593, when controversy concerning monarchy and Navarre had become extremely acute, an enlarged edition was published which made even greater use of commonplace analogies to form arguments about kingship. I would argue that the 1593 edition, in common with some apocalyptic poetry, bears witness to an increasing politicization of the genre popularized by Du Bartas; it also allows us to trace the representation of kingship - by a Huguenot in the service of Navarre - over the years during which the League most radically challenged royal authority while Navarre fought to conquer what, after 1589, he considered his own kingdom (K. Banks, Royal Authority and Commonplace Similitudes in French Natural-philosophical Poetry: Duchesne’s ‘Grand Miroir du Monde’ and Du Bartas’s ‘Septmaine’, in: “Commonplace Culture in Western Europe in Early Modern Period. I: Reformation and Counter-Reformation and Revolt”, Louvain, 2011, p. 135). At p. 294 Du Chesne mentions Nicolaus Copernicus: “Fermes tes fondamens, Copernique, je voy,/ Mais ie suy le chemin plus batu, quant à moy”. Joseph Duchesne, born in Armagnac, was the son of a physician. He studied first at Montpellier. He married a granddaughter of the humanist Guillaume Budé and, because of persecution of the French Protestants, spent many years away from his homeland. Duchesne received his medical degree at Basel in 1573 and for some time settled at Kassel, the capital of the grand duchy of Hesse. At this time and later the grand dukes were noted for their patronage of the new Paracelsian-Hermetic medicine. Later Duchesne moved to Geneva where he was received as a citizen in 1584. After election to the Council of Two Hundred (1587), he was sent on several diplomatic missions. In 1592 he helped determine the peace terms which the Republic of Geneva made with its neighbors. The following year Duchesne returned to Paris,

where he was appointed physician in ordinary to King Henry IV. In 1601 Nicolas Brûlart de Sillery gave him a mission as envoy to the Swiss cantons. In 1604 he went to the court of Maurice of Hesse-Cassel, where he gave scientific demonstrations in a laboratory set up for him. Later he returned to Paris, where he died in 1609. Duchesne was not only a figure of some importance in science and medicine but also in French literature. His La morocosmie (1583, 1601) and Poesies chrestiennes (1594) have been commented on favorably by literary historians. In addition, he ventured into tragicomedy with L’ombre de Garnier Stauffacher (1583), a work which took as its theme the alliance between Zurich, Berne, and Geneva (cf. P. Lordez, Jospeh du Chesne, sieur de la Violette, médecin du roi Henri IV, chimiste, diplomate et poète, in: “Revue d’histoire de la pharmacie”, 35/17, 1947, pp. 154-158; and A.G. Debus, Jacques Duchesne, in: “Dictionary of Scientific Biography”, 4, 1971, pp. 208-210). Simon Goulart was born at Senlis in northern France. He first studied law in Paris, then adopted the Reformed faith and became pastor at Geneva in 1566. He was called to Antwerp, to Orange, to Montpellier and to Nîmes as minister, and to Lausanne as professor; but later definitively settled at Geneva. In 1595 he preached aggressively against Gabrielle d’Estrées, the favorite of Henry IV of France. He was put in prison by order of the Council of Geneva; after eight days he was released, although the French ambassador had demanded a more severe punishment. After the death of Théodore de Bèze, he was named by the Geneva City Council president of the ‘Vénérable Compagnie des Pasteurs’. He wrote a number of books on history and theology and also was a skilled poet. He made additions to Jean Crespin’s Histoire des Martyrs (Geneva, 1608); he wrote also Recueil contenant les choses les plus mémorables advenues sous la Ligue (1590-99), and Recueil des choses mémorables sous le règne de Henri IV (1598) (cf. L.C. Jones, Simon Goulart, 1543-1628, étude biographique et bibliographique, Genève & Paris, 1917, passim). For his commentary on the Le Grand Miroir du monde see I. Pantin, Simon Goulart et Joseph Du Chesne. Les enjeux du commentaire, in: “Simon Goulart. Un pasteur aux intérêts vastes comme le monde”, O. Pot, ed., Geneva, 2013, pp. 187-204. Adams, C-1014; Index Aureliensis, 156.789; GLN-3613; L.C. Jones, Simon Goulart, 1543-1628, étude biographique et bibliographique, Geneva-Paris, 1917, pp. 614-6125, no. 41; D. Kahn, Alchimie et Paracelsisme en France à la fin de la Renaissance, 1567-1625, Paris, 2007, p. 636; A.M. Schmidt, La poésie scientifique en France au XVIe siècle, Paris, 1938, pp. 294-303. $ 1,500.-

first Italian translation of the

‘Colloquies’ 9. ERASMUS, Desiderius (1466-1536). I ragionamenti, overo Colloqui famigliari... di latino in volgare già tradotti, ma hora in tanti luoghi racconci, non solo intorno la lingua, ma etiandio intorno i sensi, che più tosto ritradotti, che racconci si possono dire. Venice, Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1549. 8vo (155x97 mm). (32, leaf **8 is a blank), 537, (5) pp. Printer’s device on the title-page and at the verso of the last leaf verso. 18th-century mottled calf, gilt flat spine with lettering-piece, red edges (joints and top of the spine a bit worn, but solid). On the verso of the title-page is found the engraved bookplate of the French bibliophile Albert François Floncel (1697-1773; see Guigard, II, pp. 216-217). Title-page slightly dampstained, small stain the in lower corner of leaf P1, otherwise a fine copy. SECOND, COMPLETELY REVISED EDITION of the first Italian translation of the ‘Colloquies’, “journal d’une vie et d’un epoque,... document irremplaçable sur la société du XVIe siècle mais aussi sur Erasme lui-même” (F. Bierlaire, Erasme et ses Colloques, Genève, 1977, p. 116). With over one hundred editions until the end of the 16th century (including translations and adaptations), the ‘Colloquies’ became Erasmus’ most printed work. The Colloquia grew from their earliest form of short models of Latin conversation and formulae of etiquette (composed for the use of Erasmus’ pupils at Paris in 1497 and first printed without his authorization at Basel in 1518 and again edited by Erasmus himself in March 1522) into a rich and motley collection of dialogues, each a masterpiece of literary form. Full of witty and penetrating information on ordinary day-to-day happenings, they are a valuable mine of information about 16th-century customs, institutions and social problems. The work also became a vehicle of social criticism and, as such, the focus of controversy (cf. E. Rummel, Les Colloques d’Érasme: renouveau spiritual et réforme, Paris, 1998, passim). The Colloquia were prohibited in various unofficial Indices since the late 1540s not only for their “Lutheran” ideas but also for being considered morally corrupt. The index of Paul IV (1559) condemned all of Erasmus’ works, but the index of the Council of Trent (1564) permitted their publication in expurgated form. However, Lauro’s Italian translations were nevertheless prohibited (cf. P. Grendler, The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 1540-1605, Princeton, NJ, 1977, p. 166).

For his translation Lauro certainly used or the definitive edition of the Colloquia printed in March 1533 or slightly later one. His aim was to give to his unlearned readers the very essence of the Colloquia, what let him to cut most of the didactic parts (“formulae”) and some erudite disquisitions (mostly philological). He translated however all the major colloquies in their integrity. In the present revised edition Lauro’s name has been omitted (for fear of retaliatory measures of the Holy Office?). The dedication to Renée de France (cf. E. Belligni, Evangelismo, riforma ginevrina e nicodemismo: l’esperienza religiosa di Renata di Francia, Cosenza, 2008, p. 247) had been maintained in its entirety and is followed by Erasmus’ vindication of the Colloquia with a slightly different title (see below). As early as 1522 Erasmus was defending the purposes of his Colloquia, especially against the assaults led by the Carmelite Nicholaas Baechem. By May 1526, his enemies in the faculty of theology at Paris, who had been complaining about him for several years, succeeded in carrying a motion of censure against the Colloquia. A few weeks before the faculty acted, Erasmus chose to defend his work in a letter to the bishop of Lincoln, John Longland (April 30, 1526). A revised version of this apology was then published under the title De utilitate colloquiorum (‘On the Usefulness of the Colloquies’, dated May 21, 1526) at the end of Familiarium colloquiorum opus, printed at Basel by Froben in June of the same year. The index enumerating the various dialogues in the 1545 edition had been expanded to a longer subject index in the present one. “Le due dediche sono perfettamente uguali ed anche il testo è sostanzialmente identico per quanto riguarda il numero e la successione dei dialoghi. Tuttavia C2 [1549] si offre come più corretta, non riportando gli errori nei titoli correnti, presentando un’interpunzione più regolare e una veste grafica più chiara, che alterna l’uso del corsivo a quello del maiuscoletto. Quella che in C1 [1545] viene intitolata Epistola di Erasmo ai lettori, ove tratta de l’utile che si cava ne Dialoghi, ovvero la De utilitate colloquiorum, e posta, come nell’originale, a chiusura dell’opera, viene in C2 anteposta e collocata subito dopo la dedica, col titolo parzialmente mutato di Epistola di Erasmo Roterodamo ai lettori, nella quale difendendo se stesso, mostra l’utile, che puo cavarsi da i suoi colloqui. In occasione della seconda edizione essa viene poi dotata di titoli in maiuscoletto, volti a rendere maggiormente riconoscibili i dialoghi in essa citati, corredati questa volta del riferimento alla carta in cui si ritrovano. Il testo di C2 si presenta infine integralmente rassettato nella veste linguistica, resa più aderente ai dettami morfologici invalsi nel periodo, preferendo le forme anafonetiche, non metatetiche e non metafonetiche, presenti in abbondanza in C1” (M. Malguti, Pietro Lauro traduttore dei ‘Colloquia’ erasmiani, Diss., Rome, 2011/12, p. 135). Little is known about the early life and education of Pietro Lauro. He was born around

1510 in Modena and probably made medical studies in Bologna or Padua, considering the many translations of medical works he did during his career. In the 1540s he moved to Venice, attracted by the growing possibilities offered in the printing business. As a schoolmaster, he taught Greek and Latin and at the same time collaborated with several local typographers especially as a translator. The relationships Lauro had with several figures close to the Evangelical movement, like Ortensio Lando, Lucrezia Gonzaga and Renée de France, and the many letters addressed to German correspondents (all found in his letter collections, published in 1552 and 1560), testify to his sympathy for the Lutheran doctrines (cf. S. Seidel Menchi, Erasmus als Ketzer: Reformation und Inquisition im Italien des 16. Jahrhunderts, Leiden & New York, 1992, pp. 435, 467). The year after the publication of the translation of the Colloquia, he completely disappeared from the literary scene in Venice to re-emerge only in 1549. Among the many works he translated in Italian stand out the De inventoribus rerum by Polidoro Virgili (1543), De officio mariti by Juan Luis Vives (1546), and Leon Battista Alberti’s De re aedificatoria (1546). From Spanish he translated numerous devotional works by Luis de Granada and Antonio de Guevara. Lauro died at Venice after 1568 (cf. G. Dini, Pietro Lauro, in: “Dizionario biografico degli italiani”, vol. 64, Rome, 2005, pp. 119-122). The printer Vincenzo Valgrisi (Vincent Vaugris) was originally from Lyon, and moved to Venice in the late 1530s, where he was active until 1573. In 1559, when all of Erasmus’ works were put on the index of Paul IV, probably under pressure of the Venetian Holy Office, Valgrisi dropped the designation ‘Ex officina Erasmiana’ or ‘Nella Bottega d’Erasmo’ (‘In Erasmus’ workshop’) from his title-pages and colophons (cf. I. Andreoli, Ex officina erasmiana. Vincenzo Valgrisi e l’illustrazione del libro tra Venezia e Lione alla metà del ‘500, Lyons, 2006, p. 78). Edit 16, CNCE18238; Universal STC, no. 828305; Adams, E-534; Index Aureliensis, 163.419; I. Andreoli, op. cit., p. 365; M. Dazzi, Aldo Manuzio e il dialogo venziano di Erasmo, Vicenza, 1969, pp. 127- 128; S. Seidel Menchi, op. cit., p. 218. $ 2,500.-

‘canzonelle alla napolitana’ 10. FIORINO, Gaspare (b. 1539). Opera nuova chiamata la Fama libro primo [only published]. Canzonelle alla Napolitana... Lyons, Printed for the Author, 1577. 4to (198x140 mm). (2), 68, (2) pp. With a woodcut portrait (dated 1577) of the author at the age of 38 on the title-page and 6 woodcuts in the text, each showing 4 allegorical illustrations. Contemporary limp vellum, spine recently reinforced, endleaves renewed, small marginal stains in the first and last three leaves, uniformly slightly browned throughout, old repair in the lower outer corner of the title-page not affecting the text, a good, genuine copy. VERY RARE FIRST EDITION containing sixty-one ‘canzonelle alla napolitana’ presented in sequence without music. If separate music fascicles were published, no copies of it are known to have survived. As in his other publications, each of the pieces in the Opera nuova is dedicated to individual women. The choices here show him to have been well connected to some of the most prominent Lyonnais families including the Buonvisi, merchants from Lucca (cf. F. Dobbins, Lyons: Commercial and Cultural Metropolis, in: “The Renaissance. From 1470 to the End of the 16th Century”, I. Fenlon, ed., London, 1989, p. 210). At the end are printed the Passioni amorose, a series of quatrains accompanied by allegorical woodcuts. “Si sa della diffusione del repertorio canzonettistico [di Fiorino], in alcune regioni dell’Europa occidentale, già dagli anni sessanta e, poi, sopratutto nel decennio successivo; e appunto a Lione, nel 1577, il musicista calabrese pubblica le canzonelle alla napoletana del volume che egli intitola Opera nuova chiamata la fama. In questo libro, già il frontespizio fornisce alcune importanti informazioni, con le quali è possibile corregere definitivamente la prospettiva biografica che ha visto Fiorino attivo presso i circoli veneziani – con la sua produzione di villanelle e canzonetta musicalmente ancora vicine alla villanesca – verso la metà del sedicesimo secolo o poco prima, negli stessi anni cio è di Willaert, Parabosco e Perissone Cambio, per poi dare alle stampe tali composizioni in ritardo di circa un ventennio, rispetto alla loro effettiva circolazione: quando del resto il polifonista calabrese, forse ormai ‘vecchio e senza lavoro al nord’ e ‘lontano dall’opulenza delle corti dove fino a qualche anno

prima era lodato e richiesto’ potrebbe in ultimo esser pure ritornato a Rossano. Orbene, la pagina del titolo di quest’Opera nuova reca anche l’incisione di un ritratto del musicista, nella diffusa prospettiva rinascimentale di tre quarti, entro una cornice ovale che specifica: ‘Gasparo Fiorino musico et poeta di la citta di Rossano etatis sue XXX8’. La data di nascita del Fiorino, quindi, resta fissata indubitabilmente al 1539; il che ben si accorda con la presenza a Venezia del polifonista calabrese – nelle riunioni accademiche presso il Veniero – non prima della fine degli anni cinquanta, come si è visto, nonché con edizioni di canzonette posteriori di circa un quindicennio, e contenenti espliciti riferimenti poetici a personaggi e eventi contemporanei. Ma, inoltre – ciò che forse è acora più significativo – tale ulteriore volume di Fiorino documenta le dimenzioni al contempo culturali e commerciali della sua attività poetica e musicale” (C. Galiano, La musica e il mondo in Italia durante il Rinascimento: Sistema della dedica e modelli culturali nobiliari nelle villanelle e canzonelle di Gasparo Fiorino, in: “Villanella, Napolitana, Canzonetta. Relazioni tra Gasparo Fiorino, compositori calabresi e scuole italiane del Cinquecento. Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi Arcavacata di Rende–Rossano Calabro, 9-11 dicembre, 1994”, M.P. Borsetta & A. Pugliese, eds., Vibo Valentia, 1999, pp. 571-572). Little is known about Gasparo Fiorino, a native from Rossano (Calabria). He probably was a singer at San Marco about the middle of the sixteenth century. At the time of one of his major works, La nobiltà di Roma: versi in lode di cento gentildonne romane (Rome, 1571), he was a ‘musico’ in the service of Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este, presumably in his Roman palace and at Ferrara. He apparently lived also for a while in Venice, where he was directly acquainted to Domenico Vernier and in contact with the musician Adriano Willaert. Strong social connections also inform his two other surviving musical publications, Libro secondo di canzonelle and Libro terzo di canzonelle (both printed in Venice in 1574 and both for three and four voices). The former is dedicated to the ladies of Genoa and is the longest publication of its kind; the latter is dedicated to Giovanni Battista Doria and praises the military and naval achievements of various members of this distinguished Genoese family in its preface. The volume contains several pieces dedicated to the victors of the Battle of Lepanto

(1571), including Marcantonio Colonna, the Cardinal Granvelle, and Don Juan of Austria. The word “canzonella”, probably coined by Fiorino himself, no doubt was intended as a fusion of ‘canzonetta’ and ‘villanella’ (cf. A. Pugliese, Gasparo Fiorino musicista calabrese, in: “Fausto Torrefranca: l’uomo, il suo tempo, la sua opera. Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi Vibo Valentia, 15-17 dicembre 1983”, G. Ferraro & A. Pugliese, eds., Vibo Valentia, 1993, pp. 235-350). Edit 16, CNCE69314; Universal STC, no. 130108; Adams, G-1046; N. Bingen, Philausone: répertoire des ouvrages en langue italienne publiés dans les pays de langue française de 1500 à 1660, Geneva, 1994, p. 165, no. 256; J. Brooks, Courtly Song in Late Sixteenth Century France, Chicago, IL, 2000, p. 262; L. Guillo, Les éditions musicales de la Renaissance Lyonnaise, Paris, 1991, pp. 345-349, no. 90; A. Pettegree & M. Walsby, French Books III & IV: Books published in France before 1601 in Latin and Languages other than French, Leiden, 2011, p. 810, no. 70681. $ 5,800.-

Renaissance poetry 11. FIRENZUOLA, Agnolo (1493-1543). Le rime di M. Agnolo Firenzuola fiorentino. Florence, 1549 (Colophon: Florence, Bernardo Giunta, 1549). 8vo (150x90 mm) 135, (1) ll. Printer’s device on the title-page and at the last leaf recto. Late 17th-centry or early 18th-century Italian morocco, panels within a triple gilt fillet, richly gilt flat spine with gilt title, marbled endleaves, inside gilt dentelles, gilt edges (small repair to spine and back panel, corners and hinges a bit worn). Minor scattered foxing, but a very good copy. FIRST EDITION, published posthumously by Lorenzo Scala and by him dedicated to Francesco Miniati, of this fortunate collection of poetry. The poems are addressed to Selvaggia (from the Prato family of the Buonamici, the woman loved by the poet), Annibal Caro, Camillo Tonti, Dada Buonvisa, to the women from Prato, Filippo Ciconini (in death of Bartolomeo Gerardacci), Vincenzo Visconti, Giovanfrancesco Buonamici, Domenico Perini, Verdespina, Santi Quattro, Clemenza Buonamici, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Martinozzo, Inghirano, Pandolfo Pucci, Giovanni Lanciolina, Giovanbattista del Milanese, Leo Villani (a bricklayer), Guido Antonio Adimari, Lasca, and Gualterotto de Bardi. The volume contains also imitation poems from Horace, two elegies, a canzone in praise of the sausage, a song in praise of the holy wood, a chapter in praise of thirst, and one in the death of an owl. At p. 60 it opens, with a separate title-page, the section Lagrime di Messer Agnolo Firenzuola nella violenta morte d’un giovane nobile napoletano, dedicated to the noblewoman from Prato Clemenza Roca. At p. 88 begins Il Sacrificio pastorale (cf. D. Maestri, Le rime di Agnolo Firenzuola: proposta di un ordinamento del testo e valutazione critica, in: “Italianistica”, III, 1974, pp. 78-96). Agnolo Firenzuola, a native of Florence, following in the footsteps of his father, a notary, studied law at Siena and Perugia, where he met Claudio Tolomei and Pietro Aretino. Upon graduation, he took the holy habit at Vallombrosa and in 1518 moved to Rome, where he became the procurator of the order at the Curia. In Rome, he formed a literary circle with his Sienna and Arezzo friends and made the acquaintance of P. Bembo, A. Caro and G. Della Casa. In 1526 he was dispensed from his vows and contracted syphilis, a disease that plagued him for a long time. The main reason why he decided to give up the habit was the meeting with a cultivated Roman noblewoman, wife of a lawyer, whom Firenzuola praises in many of his works

under the pseudonym of Constanza Amaretta. In 1538 he moved to Prato, where he founded the Accademia dell’Addiaccio and embraced again the monastic life, becoming abbot of the Monastery of San Salvatore. In the last years he went through a legal dispute with his sister over their father’s legacy and various quarrels with local families. Firenzuola died in absolute solitude at Prato on June 27, 1543. All his works, except the Discacciamento de le lettere inutilmente aggiunte ne la lingua toscana (‘Expulsion of the letters unnecessarily added to the Tuscan language’) published at Rome in 1524, were posthumously edited by his brother Girolamo, who entrusted L. Scala and L. Domenichi with the publication of Agnolo’s papers: the Prose appeared in 1548; the comedies I Lucidi and Trinunzia in 1549; and the Asino d’oro (‘Golden Ass’), an adaptation from Apuleius’ masterpiece, in 1550 (cf. F. Pignatti, Firenzuola, Agnolo, in: “Dizionario biografico degli Italiani”, XLVIII, 1997, s.v.). Edit 16, CNCE19198; B. Gamba, Delle novelle italiane in prosa, Florence, 1835, no. 456; BMSTC Italian, p. 254; Adams, F-503; L.S. Camerini, I Giunti tipografi editori di Firenze, Florence, 1979, no. 263. $ 1,600.-

Agostino Nifo and Aristotle’s ‘Ethics’ 12. FLORIMONTE, Galeazzo (1478-1567). Ragionamenti di Mons. Galeazzo Florimonte, Vescovo di Sessa, sopra l’Ethica d’Aristotile. Al signor Alfonso Cambi Importuni, gentilhuomo fiorentino. Ne quali non solo s’è ridotto al suo luogo il quarto libro, che nelle altre impressioni, per difetto di chi prima senza saputa dell’autore gli stampò, è ito per secondo, ma vi s’è aggiunto il secondo, & il terzo infino ad hora non piu stampati. Riveduti, et corretti dal proprio autore, & di nuouo con somma diligenza ristampati, & mandati in luce. Venice, Domenico Nicolini da Sabbio, 1567. 4to (201x147 mm). (4, of which the last is a blank), 177, (1) leaves. Printer’s device on the title-page and at the end. Woodcut decorated initials. Contemporary overlapping vellum, ink title on spine. Wormholes, skillfully repaired, to the gutter of the first three and last two leaves, not affecting the text. A very good copy, extremely genuine and with wide margins. FIRST COMPLETE EDITION of this commentary, written in form of dialogue, on the first four books of Aristotle’s ‘Ethics’. As Florimonte states in the dedication to Alfonso Cambi Importuni, dated August 12, 1563, he had decided to republish the conversations on Aristole’s ethics that his mentor, Agostino Nifo, used to have in Sessa with Ferrante Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno, mainly because the previous editions of 1554 and 1562, appeared without his approval, only covered the first and fourth books and were very defective. Though published posthumously, the present edition was prepared by Florimonte himself shortly before his death. In the same dedication, Florimonte recalls his friendship with Cardinal Gaspare Contarini, who first invited him to gather Nifo’s discourses. Galeazzo Florimonte was born in Sessa Aurunca (near Caserta), where between 1500 and 1506 he had as a teacher Agostino Nifo. Around 1514 he entered the service of Alfonso d’Avalos Marquis of Vasto, with whom he briefly visited Paris for the first time. During a second visit in 1520 as physician of M.A. Colonna, Florimonte was able to spend more time at the court of Francis I and to meet people who had a lasting impact on his religious views, like Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples and the German theologian Al-

bert Pigge. Back from France, in the years 1527-28 Florimonte worked in Verona as a tutor in the Serego house and met bishop G.M. Giberti and all the humanists who gathered around his figure: M.A. Flaminio, F. Berni, F. Della Torre, and Lodovico da Canossa. Florimonte left Verona in 1536, living between Sessa and Rome. In 1540 he was appointed as guardian of S. Casa di Loreto and in 1541, through the intercession of G. Contarini, as spiritual councilor of the governor of Milan, Alfonso d’Avalos. In 1542 he was elected bishop of Aquino. At the end of 1545 he moved to Trent, where he stand out as one of the most active representatives of the group of reformers. Shortly before the council was suspended in 1549, he was called to Rome by the Pope. He remained there until 1552 and it was during that sojourn that Florimonte encountered G. Della Casa and suggested him to write the famous Galateo. In 1552 Florimonte finally obtained the long-sought post of bishop of Sessa and immediately settled in his new bishopric. When the works of Council of Trent opened again in 1562, Florimonte was summoned, but now old and suffering from various illnesses, he obtained a dispensation. His friend L. Beccadelli kept him informed from Trent and communicated Florimonte’s opinions and advices to the other prelates. Floriomente died in Sessa in 1565 (F. Pignatti, Florimonte, Galeazzo, in: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, XLVIII, 1997, s.v.). Edit 16, CNCE19274; Adams, F-638; Universal STC, 830045.

$ 500.-

“the first work in any modern language bearing the title History of Europe” (Dionisotti) 13. GIAMBULLARI, Pier Francesco (1495-1555). Historia dell’Europa di M. Pierfrancesco Giambullari gentil’huomo et accademico fiorentino, nella quale ordinatamente si trattano le cose successe in questa parte del mondo dall’anno Dccc fino al 913 di nostra salute. Nuovamente posta in luce con la tavola delle cose notabili, & con le postille in margine. Venice, Francesco de Franceschi, 1566. 4to (209x146 mm). (16), 166 leaves. With errors in numbering. Woodcut initials and headpieces. Author’s portrait on title-page verso. Printer’s device on the title-page. Italic type. Early 19th-century large-grain red morocco, floral gilt border on panels, flat spine with green morocco lettering-piece and gilt decorations à la grecque and in neoclassical style, endleaves in caillouté paper, silk bookmark, gilt edges (hinges and corners rubbed and worn). Some leaves with light marginal foxing and staining, all in all a very good, wide-margined copy from the Bulgarini d’Elci Library (its engraved bookplate on verso of the first front flyleaf). FIRST EDITION (the most common issue without the woodcut border on the title-page), published posthumously by Cosimo Bartoli, who also signed the dedication to Cosimo I de’ Medici and added at the end the oration he publicly read at the funeral of his life-long friend. The oration is very important for it provides the bulk of relevant biographical information on Giambullari. This history of Europe, left unfinished for the author’s death, is considered as the first general history written in Italian. In the author’s intentions, it should have covered the period 887-1200, but remained unfinished at the year 947 (not 913 as stated on the title-page). Divided into seven books, it draws on over seventy historical and geographical sources from the Middles Ages and the Renaissance, but relies mainly on the 10th-century Italian historian Liutprand. “Despite the limitations of Giambullari’s history, limitations due in large part to its literary, humanistic approach, it is a remarkable work in many ways, not least in its ambitious scope, dealing as it does with events in Western and Eastern Europe and in Eastern Mediterranean in a period of relative obscurity. Dionisotti claimed it as ‘the first work in any modern language bearing the title History of Europe’, and Bartoli seems to have been conscious of the novelty, praising his friend for having filled a gap in contem-

porary historical writing and, at the same time, for having made a vernacular synthesis of the Latin works of obscure and sometimes relatively inaccessible authors. Despite his expectation of a good reception for the Historia from his contemporaries, the work was in fact to have its most enthusiastic readership four centuries later, if the nineteen editions and reprints that appeared between 1818 and 1910 are anything to go by” (J. Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, Geneva, 1983, pp. 235-236). Pier Francesco Giambullari received an excellent humanistic education that included instruction in Hebrew and Greek as well as in Latin. At the age of sixteen he became the secretary of Alfonsina Orsini, widow of Piero de’ Medici. While very young he took the holy orders, which made it possible for him later to be given a valued ecclesiastical post at San Lorenzo, the Medici family church. By 1539, despite a lack of published literary accomplishments, he was already well known and appreciated in the Florentine scholarly and literary world. In 1540 he became an early member of the Accademia degli Umidi and in the next year a founding member of the Accademia Fiorentina. The academy published in 1547 a volume of public lectures on Dante, of which two are by Giambullari. In 1551, under the Academy’s auspices, he published a sort of Tuscan grammar, Della lingua che si parla e si scrive in Firenze, together with the Ragionamento sopra la difficoltà di metter in regole la nostra lingua, which earned him the title of ‘Reformer of the Language’ (F. Pignatti, Giambullari, Pierfrancesco, in: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, LIV, 2000, s.v.). Edit 16, CNCE20914; B. Gamba, Serie dei testi di lingua, Venice, 1839, no. 517; L. Razzolini & A. Bacchi della Lega, Bibliografia dei testi di lingua a stampa citati dagli Accademici della Crusca, Bologna, 1890, no. 165; M. Parenti, Prime edizioni italiane, Milan, 1948, p. 259. $ 980.-

illustrious provenances

14. HESYCHIUS OF MILETUS (6 cent. BC). Ησυχιου Μιλησιου Ιλλουστριου, Περι των εν παιδεα διαλαμψαντων σοφων. Ex Bibliotheca Ioannis Sambuci Pannonij Tirnaviensis... (Followed by:) ID. Hesychii Milesii, illustri cognomento, de his qui eruditionis fama claruere, Liber: Hadriano Iunio Medico interprete. Antwerp, Christophe Plantin, 1572. th

Two parts in one volume, 8vo (165×97 mm). 48; 78, (2) pp. With Platin’s device on both the title-pages. 19th-century three-quarter calf, covers backed with marbled paper. Spine with five small raised bands emphasized by gilt fillet; on the second compartment is a red leather label with the gilt title; the rest of the spine is decorated with small gilt floral tools, red edges, joints slightly rubbed, but an excellent copy. Provenance: on the first title-page the ownership inscriptions of Guilielmus Xylander (1532-1576; ‘Xylandri’) and Friedrich Sylburg (1536-1596), who gave it to Johann Faber (‘D. Io. Fabro collegae suaviss. d.f. Fr. Syl- burg’); Johann Daniel Wildius (1585-1635; ownership inscription on title-page ‘Joh. Dan. Wildii’). Marginalia by the hands of Guilielmus Xylander and Friedrich Sylburg, mostly in the Greek part. On recto of the front endpaper are 19th-century biographical notes about the illustrious owners of our copy, taken from the Allgemeines Gelehrten- Lexikon by C.G. Jöcher: ‘Nr. 2599. Wilhelm Xylander (Holzmann). Prof. der Griechischen Sprache in Heidelberg. S. Jöcher. Nr. 2600. Friedrich Sylburg akademischer Gelehrter in Heidelberg. S. Jöcher’. EDITIO PRINCEPS of the ‘Biographical Dictionary of Learned Men’ by Hesychius of Miletus, a Greek chronicler and biographer who flourished at Constantinople in the 6th century during the reign of Justinian (cf. A. Kaldellis, The Works and Days of Hesychios the Illoustrios of Miletos, in: “Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies”, 45, 2005, pp. 381-403). It is here extant in an extraordinary copy, which belonged to two outstanding Hellenists, Guilielmus Xylander and Friedrich Sylburg. The text was edited and translated into Latin by the Dutch physician and philologist Hadrianus Junius (1511-1575), who based his editorial work on a manuscript supplied by the Hungarian humanist Johannes Sambucus (1531-1581), owner of a precious collection of Greek manuscripts. About thirty of them were printed by Christophe Plantin, such as the Epistolae eroticae of Aristainetos, the Vitae philosophorum et sophista-

rum of Eunapios, and the Dionysiaca of Nonnus of Panopolis. “In the modern histories of classical scholarship his name [Sambucus] is seldom found. The only edition that is mentioned, is the editio princeps of Aristainetus. Sambucus’ greatest contribution to textual scholarship seems to have been his collection of manuscripts and his generosity in lending them to fellow humanists. This is testified by the phrase ‘e bibliotheca J. Sambuci’ on the title’ page of a considerable number of first editions of different texts” (A.S.Q. Visser, Joannes Sambucus, p. 40). The provenance of the present copy is extremely interesting. The first owner was Guilielmus Xylander (1532-1576), professor of Greek at the Heidelberg University and editor of several Greek volumes. Hereafter the copy came into possession of Friedrich Sylburg (1536-1596), already active in Frankfurt as corrector and editor of Greek books at the printing house of Andreas Wechel. In 1591 he moved to Heidelberg, where he worked with the printer Hieronymus Commelinus, and librarian at the famed collection of the Elector Palatine. Later the volume was given by Sylburg to Johann Faber, whose name is recorded in 1556-1557 among the students at Heidelberg University. The last known owner of the Plantin Hesychius was Johann Daniel Wildius (1585-1635), who lectured theology at Landesschule, Hanau. Wilhelm Holtzman (graecized to Xylander), from of Augsburg, studied at Tubingen. In 1558, he was appointed to succeed Jakob Micyllus in the professorship of Greek at the University of Heidelberg; a position that he exchanged for the chair of logic in 1562. Xylander is the author of a number of important works, including Latin translations of Dio Cassius (1558), Plutarch (1560-1570) and Strabo (1571). He also edited (1568) the geographical lexicon of Stephanus of Byzantium; the travels of Pausanias (1583); and the ‘Meditations’ of Marcus Aurelius (1558). He translated the first six books of Euclid into German, the Arithmetica of Diophantus, and the De quattuor mathematicis scientiis of Michael Psellus into Latin (cf. M.F. Suarez, S.J. & H.R. Woudhuysen, The Oxford Companion to the Book, Oxford, 2010, s.v.). Friedrich Sylburg studied at Marburg, Jena, Geneva and Paris, where he had as teacher Henry Estienne, to whose Greek Thesaurus Sylburg made significant contributions. Back to Germany, he taught for a while at Neuhausen near Worms and at Lich near Gießen, where in 1580 he edited the Institutiones in graecam linguam of Nicolaus Clenardus. In 1583, he moved to Frankfurt a.M. and started working as a corrector and editor of Greek texts for the typographer Johann Wechel. During this period, he published editions of Pausanias, Herodot, Dionysius of Halicarnassos, Aristotle, and the Peri syntaxeos of Apollonius Dyscolus. In 1591 he moved to Heidelberg, where he became librarian to the Elector Palatine. For the Heidelberg printer Hieronymus Commelinus, Sylburg edited among other things, Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, the Etymologicum magnum, the Scriptores de re rustica, Xenophon, and Nonnus (cf. D. Gall, Sylburg, Friedrich, in: “Geschichte der Altertumswissenschaften. Biographisches Lexikon”, P. Kuhlmann & H. Schneider, eds., Supplemente, VI, Stuttgart-Weimar, 2012, cols. 1207- 1209). Universal STC, no. 411797; Adams, H-512; L. Voet, The Plantin press: (1555-1589): a bibliography of the works printed and published by Christopher Plantin at Antwerp and Leiden, Amsterdam, 1983, III, 1323- 1324; P. Gulyas, Die Bibliothek Sambucus. Katalog 1587, Szeged, 1992, 2106; C.L. Heesakkers, H. Junius, in: “Centuriae Latinae”, I, Geneva, 1997, p. 450; A.S.Q. Visser, J. Sambucus and the Learned Image, Leiden, 2005, p. 40; G. Almasi, The Uses of Humanism. J. Sambucus (1531-1584), A. Dudith (1533-1589), and the Republic of Letters in East Central Europe, Leiden, 2009, pp. 177, 185, 222. $ 3,200.-

Gregorian calender and the Japasnese a new mnemonic method explained to Japanese catholics 15. LIMPIO, Pompeo (fl. end of the 16th cent.). Dactylismus ecclesiasticus in libros IIII distributus. In quo perquam facili methodo ostenditur non solum ut quis anno qulibet prorposito sciat memeoriter, et extempore pronunciare diem paschatis, ceteraq. festa mobilia: item Aureum Numerum, Epactam, Literam Dominicalem, et Martyrologii; verum etiam quot Lunationes Annus ipse contineat, et an sit Primus, Secundus, Tertius post Bissextilem… Venice, Bernardo Giunta, 1613. the

Folio (303x212 mm). (8), 371 [i.e. 375], (1) pp. With a large printer’s device on the title-page and 10 half-page woodcut illustrations showing mnemonic hands. With also numerous tables in text. Contemporary vellum over boards, manuscript title on spine (lower part of the spine repaired). On the title-page old round stamp and ownership’s inscription ‘Est Con.tus Sanctae Mariae de Jesu Montisfortini 1704’. A few marginal annotations. Some browning and marginal staning, a very good copy. EXTREMELY RARE FIRST EDITION of this very unusual and peculiar book. It deals in general with the Gregorian reform of the calendar, but some chapters in particular explain a new method to calculate in an easy way the Christian festivities and to learn them by heart with the aid of mnemonic techniques involving the use of the hands. This new method was conceived by Limpio on purpose for the Japanese converted to the Catholic faith. Christophorus Clavius strongly believed in the utility of this method and recommended it to the Pope Gregory XIII. In the dedication to Pope Paul V, Limpio states that he had started writing this work thirty-two years earlier, around 1581, in the same period in which the

new calendar was introduced (at that time he was at the service of Cardinal Antonio Sauli), but the sudden death of Gregory had interrupted the work and delated its publication: “Ipse namquam Saulius, Cardinalis amplissimus, quem nobis Deus dedit, ut esset qui in reb. arduis pro Rep. Christiana decernendis cum suo admirabili consilio presto afforet, Gregorio XIII feliciss. record. hunc meum Dactilismum attulit, suasu ipsius Clavii ab eodem Pontefice Iapponiensibus ob faciliorem doctrinam destinatum. Sed repentinus eiusdem Pontificis interitus effect, ut Dactilismus meus ad Iapponenses non navigaverit, et apud me tot annos delitescens lucem non viderit” (l. 2). Part of the book is written in the form of a dialogue among the author himself, the poet Vincenzo Giliani, and the famous astronomer Pietro Paolo Gallucci, who at p. 3 says that he was 85 years old and deals with the telescope. Riccardi, II/I, 49-50; Houzeau-Lancaster, 13842; Universal STC, 4028405.

$ 8,500.-

Cinquecento 16. LIONARDI, Alessandro (fl. mid 16 cent.). Dialogi... della inventione poetica. Et insieme di quanto alla istoria et all’arte oratoria s’appartiene, et del modo di finger la favola. Venice, Plinio Pietrasanta, 1554. one of the most important poetological tracts of the th

4to (206x149 mm). 84, (12) pp. The last leaf is a blank. With the printer’s device on the title-page. 19th-century marbled boards. Some marginal foxing on a few leaves, a fine copy with wide margins. FIRST EDITION, dedicated to Pope Julius III (Venice, February 3, 1554), of one of the most important poetological tracts of the Cinquecento. It is written in form of a dialogue. Interlocutors in the first dialogue are: Sperone Speroni, critic, dramatist and scholar; Marcantonio Genova, professor of philosophy at Padua; and Giulio Parigiani, bishop of Rimini; in the second, Giulio Parigiani is replaced by Torquato Bembo, son of Pietro Bembo (cf. B. Weinberg, ed., Trattati di poetica e retorica del ‘500, Bari, 1970, pp. 224-225). “As the rhetorical term ‘invention’ suggests, the dialogue is a self-conscious attempt to show how poetry and rhetoric are related: ‘It is necessary that the port knew in what form and manner he ought to speak... And he will take this perception from the orator. If he treats characters on works either virtuous or vicious, he will have recourse to the demonstrative category of oratory, providing honors for the virtue and dishonor for vice’. The extremely broad application of this principle is evident from Leonardi’s list of ‘demonstrative’ works. Among others he cites the Symposium, the funeral orations of Demosthenes and Plato, the Cyropaedia of Xenophon and Petrarch’s lyrics” (O.B. Hardison, Jr., Rhetoric, Poetic and the Theory of Praise, in: “Landmark Essays on Rhetoric and Literature, 16”, C. Kallendorf, ed., Mahwah, N.J, 1999, p. 92). In the second dialogue are also discussed the different types of fiction: “La favola poi in tre parti dividiamo & la prima chiamiamo vera che pero è finta;

la seconda finta che par vera, la terza quella che essi fecero prima... Delle due prime ne nascono tutti i poemi ò pieni di verità , ò di ombra & imagine del vero. Pieni di verità dico quando s’abbraccia sotto favola verità istorica, ò naturale ò morale secondo che dimostrerarsi. Ombra & imagine del vero poi é questa favola che é chia-mata imitatione, cioè narratione & isposizione di cose verisimili...” (p. 63). “La première [fable], ‘vera, che pero è finta’, tire sa crédibilité de la vérité supérieure qui la motive. La seconde, ‘finta che par vera’, est vraisemblable grâce à l’art de l’imitatio qui est propre du poète. Selon Alessandro Lionardi, ce dernier est ‘fingitore’ et ‘imitatore del vero’, il exerce ses talents dans la fable en se servant à la fois de la vérité propre à l’historien, et de la vraisemblance caractéristique de l’art oratoire... le genre entretient donc des relations complexes avec les notions de vérité et de vraisemblance: ces dernières montrent que la fable est à la frontière entre une pratique philosophique, une recherche et un dévoilement de la Vérité transcendentale, et une pratique poétique qui est celle de l’imitatio vraisemblable” (V. Montagne, Antoine Héroët et ‘l’aultre invention extraicte de Platon’: remarques sur les inventions d’un poète-philosophe, in: ‘’Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance”, 64/3, 2004, p. 554). “I Tre discorsi (1553) di Girolamo Ruscelli (ca. 1515-1566) segnarono l’inizio della collaborazione di quest’ultimo con l’esordiente Plinio Pietrasanta, che era in realtà un semplice prestanome dietro il quale il Ruscelli pubblicò diverse opere fino al 1555, quando fu chiamato insieme al Pietrasanta a presentarsi in tribunale per aver stampato senza licenza un componimento osceno. Tale circostanza segnò la fine di questa collaborazione editoriale che vide coinvolto anche il bolognese Girolamo Giglio. Tuttavia, occorre sospendere il giudizio sulla collaborazione del Ruscelli a un’edizione del Pietrasanta apparsa all’inizio del 1554, cioè i Dialogi di Messer Alessandro Lionardi, della inventione poetica...” (P. Trovato, Con ogni diligenza corretto. La stampa e le revisioni editoriali dei testi letterari italiani, 1470-1570, Bologna, 1991, p. 264). Nothing is known about the life of Alessandro Lionardi, a lawyer and poet from Padua and a pupil of Sperone Speroni. He left two volumes of Rime (1547, 1550) and the present treatise (cf. G. Vedova, Biografia degli scrittori padovani, Padua, 1832, I, pp. 513515).

Edit 16, CNCE45608; J. Balsamo, De Dante à Chiabrera. Poètes italiens de la Renaissance dans la bibliothèque de la Fondation Barbier-Mueller, Genève, 2007, p. 441-442; G.J. Buelow, Music, Thetoric and the Concept of the Affections: A Selective Biography, in: “Notes”, 2nd series, 30/2, 1973, p. 258; L. D. Green & J. J. Murphy, Renaissance Rhetoric Short Title Catalogue, 1460-1700, Aldershot, 2006, p. 274; B. Hathaway, Marvels and Commonplaces: Renaissance Literary Criticism, New York, 1968, pp. 14-15, 191. $ 680.-

Petrarch’s Canzoniere 17. [MANTOVA BENAVIDES, Marco (1489-1582)]. Annotationi brevissime sovra le rime di m. F.P. le quali contengono molte cose a proposito di ragion civile, sendo stata la di lui prima professione, a beneficio de li studiosi, hora date in luce, con la traduttione della canzona. Chiare fresche et dolc’aque. Italia mia. Vergine bella. Et del sonetto. Quando veggio dal ciel scender l’aurora. In Latino. Padua, Lorenzo Pasquato, 1566. important commentary on

4to (201x150 mm). (4), 171, (1 blank) leaves. With the printer’s device on the title-page and the woodcut portraits of Petrarca and Laura on the verso. Contemporary limp vellum with manuscript title on spine, ties gone, outer lower corner of the back panel and lower portion of the spine repaired, some light browning, but a very good, genuine copy. RARE FIRST EDITION of this important commentary on Petrarch’s Canzoniere, already attributed to Mantova Benavides by Nicola Francesco Haym (Biblioteca italiana ossia notizie de’ libri rari italiani, Milan, 1771, p. 441, no. 12; see also G. Melzi, Dizionario di opere anonime e pseudonime di scrittori italiani, I, p. 60). “The appearance of his Annotationi brevissime on Petrarch’s Rime… suggests a spurt of activity in leisure time pursuits following his semi-retirement in 1564. Yet even though he is no longer teaching full-time, Mantova connects with Petrarch collegially, a somewhat ironic relationship given the latter’s avowed hatred of the subject his father had forced him to study in a misspent youth at the universities of Bologna and Montpellier… A pedagogical intent organizes Mantova’s annotations into two books. First comes the commentary, attached to select lines and poems. The second part is a mini-dictionary of rhetoric… Examples drawn from the poet’s verse illustrate classical figures of speech, Latin terms alphabetically ordered… this volume reveals how readers took possession of the great sonneteer, dissecting his lyric corpus to serve their own purposes. Mantova cus-

tomizes Petrarch, alighting on passages with legal implications and providing a gloss. To this specialized apparatus he appends a refresher course on rhetoric, mastery of which was essential to any skilled forensic author. The content of those pithy sayings that the professor abstracts from the poet’s story could well stand as a personal credo, illustrating stylistically his endless fondness for apophthegmatic diction” (V. Kirkham, Literary Pastimes of a Paduan Jurist, in: “ ‘Accessus ad Auctores’. Studies in Honor of Christopher Kleinhenz”, A. Alfie & A. Dini, eds., Tempe, AZ, 2011, pp. 479-480). “Nelle Annotazioni brevissime, pubblicate nel 1566 in lingua mescidata di volgare e latino trapassanti sen-za ragione né regola dall’uno all’altro, il canzoniere petrarchesco è riconsiderato in una nuova veste: non più collezione di rime amorosette e lascive, né giardino di fiori spirituali, ma repertorio ‘pieno et abondevole di luoghi latini, della Scrittura Sacra, di Dialettica, d’Astrologia, di Philosophia, di Grammatica, di figure, d’argomenti...’. Il Mantova, in questo modo, crede di rispondere bastantemente all’invito del Bembo per una lettura delle rime organica e orientata da un vigile senso storico-linguistico, portando a conseguenze paradossali un’interpretazione del canzoniere quale degno Poema di Autore più tosto latino che Toscano: ipotesi non nuova del tutto ma nel commento del Mantova sostanziata di alcuni originali e curiosi presupposti. Nel parlare delle Rime come di un poema, o romanzo, i commentatori cinquecenteschi evidenziavano soprattutto la vera o presunta consistenza narrativa della vicenda d’amore e di pentimento che vi è allusa. Il Mantova, invece, non fa alcun cenno di questa pos-sibilità: il canzoniere è poema in primo luogo in quanto opera ornata e di elevato stile, cioè per mera qualificazione retorica…; in secondo luogo perché vi si esprime una costante che sarebbe, a quanto pare, una più o meno celata sapienza giuridica… Che quella ragion civile [cui si allude già nel titolo] sia una guida occasionalmente appropriata alla spiegazione delle Rime è, in sé, una pretesa non priva di interesse nella sua strampalatezza, stante la tesi che gli interrotti studi legali del Petrarca abbiano las-ciato una traccia nella sua opera poetica” (M. Pastore Stocchi, Marco Mantova Benavides e i Trecentisti maggiori, in: “Marco Mantova Benavides: il suo museo e la cultura padovana del Cinquecento. Atti della giornata di studio, 12 novembre 1983, nel 4. centenario della morte (1582-1982)”, I. Favaretto, ed., Padua, 1984, pp. 262263; see also M. Guglielminetti, Petrarca 1566. Le ‘Annotazioni’ di Marco Mantova Benavides, in: “Revue des Études Italiennes”, 29, 1983, pp. 170-179).

Marco Mantova Benavides was the scion of a Spanish family immigrated to Mantua, who later settled in Padua. He studied law and obtained the chair of jurisprudence at Padua University in 1515, a position he occupied for almost seventy years. Among his illustrious students were Giovanni Angelo de’ Medici (later Pope Pius IV), Cardinal Antonio Carafa, Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo, Pier Paolo Vergerio, and many others. He was among the founding members of two important academies: Accademia degli Infiammati and Accademia degli Elevati. In 1545 he was knighted by Emperor Charles V, who also made him count Palatine. His stature in the Paduan cultural scene and beyond derived not only from his academic and humanistic pursuits, but also from his activities as a collector and patron of the arts as well. When the ‘Hall of the Giants’ (Sala dei Giganti) in the Carrara Palace (now part of the University of Padua) was undergoing its campaign, Benavides built himself a new house near the church of Eremitani and Pietro Bembo’s house. When it came time to decorate this palazzo around 1541, Benavides called upon the same team that had worked in the Sala dei Giganti, Domenico Campagnola, Gualtieri and Stefano dell’Arzere, and Lambert Sustris. The main body of the house was given over to Benavides’ museum and huge library. Nor was the interior of his house Benavides’ only concern: by 1544 was set up the colossal Hercules, he had commissioned from Bartolomeo degli Ammannati, which was far larger than any previous Renaissance statue (cf. I. Favaretto, ed., Marco Mantova Benavides: il suo museo e la cultura padovana del Cinquecento, Atti della giornata di studio, 12 novembre 1983, nel 4. centenario della morte, 1582-198, Padua, 1984, passim). Among his immense literary production, mainly in the field of law, emerge, however, a vast epistolary and also some noteworthy literary works of which the present is one of the few published in the vernacular (cf. G. Vedova, Biografia degli scrittori padovani, Padua, 1836, I, pp. 564-579). Edit16, CNCE 32984; Universal STC, no. 840248; M. Bianco, M. Mantova Benavides, Annotationi brevissime sovra le rime di M. F. Petrarca, Padova, Pasquale, 1566, in: “Petrarca e il suo tempo. Catalogo della Mostra di Padova (8 maggio-31 luglio 2004)”, G. Mantovani, ed., Geneva-Milan, 2006, pp. 534-535, no. IX/23; K. Ley, Ch. Mundt-Espin & Ch. Krauss, Die Drucke von Petrarcas ‘Rime’, 1470-2000, Hildesheim, 2002, pp. 259-260, no. 268; B. Saraceni Fantini, Prime indagini sulla stampa padovana del Cinquecento, in: “Miscellanea di scritti di bibliografia ed erudizione in memoria di Luigi Ferrari”, Florence, 1952, p. 447, no. 210; L. Suttina, Bibliografia delle opere a stampa intorno a Francesco Petrarca, 1485-1904, Trieste, 1908, no. 205. $ 1,380.-

“the beginning of the theory of elasticity” (Zetilinger) in armorial binding

18. MARCHETTI, Alessandro (1633-1714). De resistentia solidorum. Florence, Vincenzo Vangelisti and Piero Matini, 1669. 4to (200x145 mm). (12), 127, (1 blank) pp. On the title-page woodcut arms of the dedicatee, Cardinal Leopold de’ Medici. Illustrated with several woodcut diagrams in text. Contemporary calf, panels framed by a double gilt filet with four gilt corner-pieces and at the center the coat-ofarms of Charles de Sainte-Maure, duc de Montausier (1610-1690, French lieutenant-general, governor and tutor of Louis le Grand Dauphin, the eldest son and heir of Louis XIV, King of France), richly gilt spine with five raised bands and gilt title, marbled endleaves, red edges (panels slightly worn and rubbed, joints weakened). On the front pastedown and flyleaf engraved bookplate and shelf label of the French mathematician Michel Chasles (1793-1880). Small loss of paper in the outer lower corner of pp. 83/84 not affecting the text, some light browning, a very good copy. FIRST EDITION of this pioneering study in the theory of elasticity that the author originally intended to entitle “Galileus Ampliatus”. “It deals with the strength of materials and the problems of solids of equal resistance, a study initiated by Galileo (who is extensively praised in the preface along with Marchetti’s teacher, Borelli). The work also contains a discussion of the views of Vincenzo Viviani and Guido Grandi. ‘One of the most important works on the problem of solids of equal resistance, initiated by Galileo, and forming the beginning of the theory of elasticity’ (Zetilinger)” (V.L. Roberts & I. Trent, Bibliotheca Mechanica, New York, 1991, p. 214). Starting from a proposition enunciated by Galileo in his Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze (Leiden 1638), which proves that “solidum parabolicum esse ubique aequalis resistentiae”, in the present work Marchetti tries to give a first consistent arrangement to the entire Galilean static of the inclined plane. The publication of the book was the cause of a harsh polemic with V. Viviani, who was about to publish a text on the same subject.

Alessandro Marchetti was born in Pontormo near Empoli. He studied in Pisa under G.A. Borelli, who first introduced him to the Galilean experimental method. In 1659, the same year in which he graduated, he was given the lecture of logics in the same Studio. In 1660 he started teaching natural philosophy, a position that he held until 1677. Between 1664 and 1668 Marchetti completed the enormous task of translating for the first time into Italian the De rerum natura of Lucretius, but the cold reception of the work and the opposition of the Tuscan authorities to its publication were a cause of major disappointment for him (the book was finally published in London in 1717, after Marchetti’s death, and immediately put in the Index). As a consequence of this defeat, he devoted himself to more technical issues, in particular to an exploration of mechanics, publishing the Exercitationes mechanicae (Pisa, 1669) and the present work. In 1674 he issued the Fundamenta universae scientiae de motu uniformiter accelerato (Pisa 1674), presenting himself once again as the real successor of Galileo. In 1677 Marchetti finally obtained the chair of mathematics at the Pisa University, which he held until his death. In 1691, the publication by the Grand Duke of an ordinance that prohibited the public teaching of atomism, obliged Marchetti to take refuge in a quiet didactic routine relieved only by his old passion for poetry. In his last years he was involved in a dispute with Guido Grandi. Marchetti died in Pontormo in 1714 (cf. C. Preti, Marchetti, Alessandro, in: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, vol. 69, 2007, s.v.). Carli & Favaro, no. 325; Cinti, no. 148; Honeyman, no. 2143; Riccardi, I, 2, 106; Wolf, I, pp. 473-474; Roberts & Trent, Op. cit., pp. 212-214. $ 3,200.-

Homer, Virgil and contemporary Italian poetry 19. MENECHINI, Andrea (d. 1607). Delle lodi della poesia, d’Omero, et di Virgilio. Oratione composta dall’eccellente signor Andrea Menechini. Venice, Gabriel Giolito de’ Ferrari, 1572. 4to (203x145 mm). (22) leaves. With the printer’s device on the title-page. Later boards. Later ownership’s inscriptions ‘G. Zuccardi’ on the title-page. Old repair to the lower blank margin of the last five leaves, some light browning, otherwise a good copy. FIRST SEPARATE EDITION. Only a smaller part of Menichini’s speech deals with the poetry of the ancients, the main portion of it gives a comprehensive overview of the contemporary Italian poetry and poets, as well as their patrons. Among the numerous celebrated authors are Federico Badoer, founder of the Accademia della Fama, Giulio Camillo, Alberto Lollio, Luigi Alamanni, Girolamo Muzio, Francesco Patrizi, and many others, giving also sometimes short biographical details. The oration also contains examples of translations from ancient authors into Italian and furthermore sixteen sonnets by Menichini addressed to various Italian and foreign patrons (e.g. Queen Isabella of Naples, Charles, Ferdinand and John of Austria) (cf. L. Bolzoni, La stanza della memoria. Modelli letterari e iconografici dell’età della stampa, Turin, 1997, p. 222). Menichini’s oration had already been printed at the end of Lodovico Dolce’s Achille et Enea a year earlier, and again, with the same text, but with separate pagination in 1572. In his speech Menichini celebrates Dolce, who with his translation had made of Homer and Virgil Italian poets: “egli ha accomodato il poema all’uso ricevuto et aggradito della moderna poesia, onde il Dolce merita ogni lode di aver seguito la strada de’ Moderni” (cf. M. Bianco, Il ‘Tempio’ in onore: parabola di un genere antologico cinquecentesco, in: “Miscellanea di Studi in onore di Giovanni da Pozzo”, Rome, 2004, p. 177).

Andrea Menechini, a native of Castelfranco in the Veneto region between Treviso and Vicenza, studied law at Padua and afterwards practiced at Venice. During Henri III stay in Venice (1574), he was knighted and issued a ‘capitolo’ in which the French King is portrayed in conversation with Catholic Religion. A volume with his poetry together with an oration exhorting the Christian sovereigns to undertake a crusade against the Turks, was printed at Treviso in 1597 (cf. Memorie scientifiche e letterarie dell’Ateneo di Treviso, Venice, 1819, I, p. 105). Edit 16, CNCE17406(2); S. Bongi, Annali di Gabriel Giolito de’ Ferrari da Trino di Monferrato stampatore in Venezia, Rome, 1890-1895, II, 322-323; G. Mambelli, Annali delle edizioni virgiliane, Florence, 1954, p. 144; A. Nuovo & Ch. Coppens, I Giolito e la stampa nell’Italia del XVI secolo, Geneva, 2005, p. 496, no. 36; H. Vaganey, Le sonnet en Italie et en France, Lyons, 1903, I, p. XXIII, 1572, no. 13; B. Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance, Chicago, 1961, II, p. 1136. $ 450.-

the summa of the

Venetian neo-Petrarchism

Molino by the painter Giovanni Mario Verdizzotti and at the end a ‘tombeau poétique’ in Molino’s memory 20. MOLIN, Girolamo (1500-1569). Rime… Novamente venute in luce. Con Privilegij per anni XXV. Venice, [Comin da Trino], 1573. with a life of

8vo (151x102 mm). (15, lacking the first blank leaf), 121 [i.e. 126, leaves 54, 63, 64, 107 and 108 repeated in numbering], (6) leaves. With a woodcut device on the title-page and at the end. Contemporary vellum, spine covered by a red paper with label and ink title, slightly rubbed and worn, a good and genuine copy. FIRST EDITION (variant issue in which the blank leaf Q7 is replaced by a bifolium containing a sonnet by Domenico Venier and the errata). The volume is dedicated by Celio Magno to Giulio Contarini (Zara, October 20, 1572) and also contains a life of Molino written by the painter Giovanni Mario Verdizzotti, a pupil of Titian. This verse collection represents a kind of summa of the Venetian neo-Petrarchism and contains at the end a ‘tombeau poétique’ in Molino’s memory, including verses by Lauro Badoer, Girolamo Fioretti, Federico Frangipane, Giorgio Gradenigo, Pietro Gradenigo, Nicolò Macheropio, Celio Magno, Domenico Vernier, and some anonymous authors (cf. E. Taddeo, Il manierismo letterario e i lirici veneziani del tardo Cinquecento, Rome, 1974, pp. 73-91). “Nel 1569 muore Girolamo Molino. Gli amici, Domenico Venier in primo luogo, promuovono la pubblicazione delle sue rime; Celio Magno le dedica a Giulio Contarini. Il compito di scrivere la vita dell’autore è affidata al Verdizotti. Anche in questo caso egli coglie l’occasione per dare al libro un particolare sapore. Si celebra la collaborazione fra grandi

personaggi di generazioni diverse: si ricorda l’amicizia del giovane Molino con i vecchi maestri, il Bembo, Triphon Gabriele, il Trissino, e con personaggi illustri, con cui minore era lo stacco generazionale, come Domenico Venier, il Navagero, Daniele Barbaro, Bernardo Cappello, Luigi Cornaro, lo Speroni, Bernardo Tasso, Giulio Camillo. Il Verdizotti ricorda anche che l’amore per la poesia volgare conviveva nel Molin con l’interesse per la pittura, la scultura, la musica, e che anche conosceva la lingua ebraica, oltre al greco e al latino. Interessante è anche il ritratto morale del personaggio, non si sposa per non turbare l’otium degli studi letterari, ma non è certo insensibile al fascino delle belle donne; accetta raramente incarichi pubblici, ma si indigna per il cattivo uso che altri ne fanno: si arrabbiava, scrive il Verdizotti, contro coloro che ‘carichi di ricchezza e ornati di grande autorità, non facessero molte cose degne di loro, come si può tener per certo ch’egli fatto haverebbe’. La vita del Molin scritta dal Verdizotti tende dunque a tramutarsi nella celebrazione di un ambiente, nella appassionata rievocazione di un momento magico della vita culturale veneziana” (L. Bolzoni, La stanza della memoria. Modelli letterari e iconografici nell’età della stampa, Turin, 1995, p. 36). “Since musical activity in Venier’s salon functioned as a pastime rather than a central activity, and since the academy kept no formal records of its meetings, concrete evidence of links between musicians and men of letters is scarce... Among literati the most intriguing link may be found in the figure of Molino, Venier’s aristocratic poet friend and acquaintance of Parabosco. Molino’s stature in Venetian society was considerable, despite family battles that cost him an extended period of poverty and travail. A bust sculpted by Alessandro Vittoria for the tiny Cappella Molin in Santa Maria del Giglio - where a great number of reliquaries owned by the family are still preserved - portrays Molino as the embodiment of gerontocratic wisdom. In 1573 his posthumous biographer, Giovan Mario Verdizzotti, wrote that of all the arts Molino had delighted in understanding music most of all. The remark is supported by earlier evidence. Several composers based in Venice and the Veneto - Jean Gero, Francesco Portinaro, and Antonio Molino (no relation) - set Molino’s seemingly little-accessible verse to music before its publication in 1573, four years after the poet’s death... Molino himself may have performed solo song, as Stampa seems to hint in a sonnet dedicated to him with the

words ‘Qui convien sol la tua cetra, e ‘l tuo canto, / Chiaro Signor’ (‘Here only your lyre is fitting, and your song, / eminent sir’). In Petrarchan poetry the idea of singing, and singing to the lyre, is of course a metaphorical adaptation of classical convention to mean simply poetizing, without intent to evoke real singing and playing. But Stampa’s poems make unusual and pointed separations between the acts of ‘scrivere’ and ‘cantare’ that suggest she meant real singing here. Other contemporaries specifically point up Molino’s knowledge of theoretical and practical aspects of music. In 1541, Giovanni del Lago dedicated his extensive collection of musical correspondence to Molino, whom he declared held ‘the first degree in the art of music’ (‘nell’arte di Musica tiene il primo grado’). Further, he claimed, ‘Your Lordship... merits... the dedication of the present epistles, in which are contained various questions about music... And certainly one sees that few today are found (like you) learned... in such a science, but yet adorned with kindness and good morals’. Del Lago’s correspondence was theoretically oriented in church polyphony. One of its most striking aspects is its recognition of connections between music and language that parallel those embodied in the new Venetian madrigal style. Del Lago insisted that vernacular poetry be complemented with suitable musical effects and verbal syntax with musical phrasing. In discussing these relationships he developed musically the Ciceronian ideals of propriety and varietas. His dedication to Molino therefore presents a fascinating bridge between patronage in Venier’s circle and developments in Venetian music. Yet taken in sum these sources show Molino’s musical patronage embracing two different traditions, each quite distinct: one, the arioso tradition of improvisers and frottolists; the other, the learned tradition of church polyphonists. Molino’s connection with both practices reinforces the impression that Venetian literati prized each of them” (M. Feldman, City culture and the madrigal at Venice, Berkeley, CA, 1995, pp. 113-116; see also E. Greggio, Girolamo da Molino, in: “Ateneo Veneto”, ser. 18, vol. 2, 1894, pp. 188-202 and 255-323). The printing of the volume has been attributed to Comino da Trino, a typographer active in Venice from 1539 to 1573, and probaly represents his last work (cf. E. Vaccaro, Le marche dei tipografi ed editori italiani del XVI secolo nella Biblioteca Angelica di Roma, Florence, 1983, p. 254). Edit 16, CNCE48399; Universal STC, no. 843040; I. Pantani, Biblia. Biblioteca del libro italiano antico. La biblioteca volgare. Vol. 1: Libri di poesia, Milan, 1996, no. 2974; H. Vaganay, Le sonnet en Italie et en France au XVIe siècle, Lyons, 1902, I, p. XXX, no. 7. $ 1,200.-

in a contemporary armorial binding

21. MUGNOS, Filadelfo (1607-1675). I raguagli historici del Vespro Siciliano. Del Sign. D. Filadelfo Mugnos Leontino Accademico Racceso detto l’Occupato. Nei quali si mostrano i felici Reggimenti c’han fatto i Sereniss. e Catolici Regi Aragonesi, ed Austriaci nel lor Regno fideliss. di Sicilia, e’l mal governo di Carlo d’Angio Rè primo di Napoli con le notitie d’alcune nobiliss. famiglie del medesimo Regno, E nel fine i Caval. Gerosol. i Pretori di Pal. e Straticò di Messina. Colophon: Palermo, Pietro Coppola, 1645. 4to (207x150 mm). (16), 328 [i.e. 238], (10) pp. Page 238 wrongly numbered 328. With half-title, title-page within an elaborate architectural woodcut border signed by Giuseppe Caruso, the woodcut arms of the dedicatee, Francesco Gravina, at l. π3r, and the errata leaf at the end. Contemporary calf, panel framed by a double gilt filet with at the center the gold-stamped arms of Nicolas Hennequin (b. 1597) with the motto “Membra non animum tegunt”, spine with five raised bands, gilt decorations in the compartments and gilt title, marbled edges (slightly worn and rubbed, joints partially open, small loss of leather to the bottom part of the spine and one corner). A very good, genuine copy, only slightly browned. FIRST EDITION (a second, enlarged, appeared in Palermo in 1669) of this detailed (but also discussed) chronicle of the anti-French revolt that broke out on March 1282 on the churchyard of the Holy Spirit Church in Palermo, from which it immediately spreads throughout Sicily. The rebellion, known as ‘Sicilian Vespers’, overthrew the throne of Charles I of Anjou and brought to the power the house of Aragon. The book also lists the Gerosolimitan Knights of the Order of Malta until 1637, the Bagli and Pretori of Palermo from 1282 to 1645, the Straticoti (or Capitani) of the city of Messina, and the noblest Sicilian families (cf. S. Tramontana, Introduzione, in: F. Mugnos, “I raguagli historici del vespro siciliano”, facsimile reprint of the 1645 edition, Palermo, n.d.). I raguagli historici del Vespro Siciliano is a very significant work: to publish in

the midst of the turbulent 1640s a reflection on a capital rebellion and its reasons was a challenging and, in some way, courageous act. Mugnos, using the art of dissimulation, drew in the introduction a comfortable contrast between the long happy government of the Aragonese and the Hapsburgs and the short (seventeen years) period of the French domination, characterized by violence and depredation. Once created this sort of smokescreen, however, Mugnos advances a politically dreadful thesis, though widely present in the Spanish school after Mariana’s De rege: the legitimacy of the rebellion against a king who has turned into a tyrant. In the background Mugnos also criticizes the excessive role of ministers, the exorbitant taxation and the corruption so widespread in the kingdom, and condemns the policies of the two great opposing superpowers of the time, France and Spain, and of their favorite ministers, Richelieu and Olivares (cf. F. Benigno, La memoria dei Vespri. Un esempio di uso politico della storia, in: “Favoriti e ribelli. Stili della politica barocca”, Rome, 2011, pp. 193-208). Filadelfo Mugnos was born in Lentini, Sicily. He took a law degree at the University of Catania and was made a member of the Portuguese chivalric Order of Christ and of various academies. Among his many historical, genealogical and poetical publications, the best known is the Teatro genealogico delle famiglie nobili, titolate, feudatarie ed antiche del fedelissimo regno di Sicilia viventi ed estinte, published in three volumes between 1645 and 1670. Mugnos died in Palermo in 1675 (cf. F. Benigno, Mugnos, Filadelfo, in: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, vol. 77, 2012, s.v.). Catalogo unico, IT\ICCU\BVEE\035170; G. Mira, Bibliografia Siciliana, Palermo, 1881, II, 110; S.P. Michel, Répertoire des ouvrages imprimés en langue italienne au XVIIe siècle conservés dans les bibliothèques de France, Paris, 1975, V, 207; G. Moncada Lo Giudice, Una biblioteca siciliana, Rome, 2001, no. 1542. $ 950.-

America the copy of Valentín Carderera y Solano apparently no copy in

“one of the earliest historical descriptions of any church in Europe” (Nickson) 22. ORTIZ, Blas (1485-1552). Summi templi Toletani per quam graphica descriptio... Toledo, Juan de Ayala, March 1549. 8vo (141x92 mm). CXLIX, (9) leaves (lacking the two blank leaves at the end). With the large woodcut coat-of-arms of Emperor Charles V on the title-page, two large woodcut initials and one larger historiated initial on leaf XXVIIIv, showing St. Ildefonsus of Toledo kneeling in front of the Holy Virgin. Early 19th-century mottled calf, gilt spine with morocco lettering-piece, red edges, silk bookmark (corners lightly rubbed, lower part of the spine slightly damaged). On the title-page is a note “36 franc. Card. Gaignat”, referring to Cardinal Louis Jean Gaignat, whose library was sold after his death (cf. Supplément à la bibliographie instructive, ou Catalogue des livres du cabinet de feu M. Louis Jean Gaignat, II, Paris, 1769, no. 2718); on the title-page is also found the entry of ownership of the Spanish painter and art historian Valentín Carderera y Solano (1796-1880), who has also written the long bibliographical note on the front flyleaf and many interesting historical notes in the margins of the volume (see more details below); a very nice and interesting copy. VERY RARE FIRST EDITION of this historical and architectural description of the Toledo Cathedral (cf. A. Fernández Collado, La cathedral de Toledo en el Siglo XVI: vida, arte y personas, Toledo, 1999, pp. 89-90). “Three hundred years after Ro-

drigo, Archbishop of Toledo, founded the cathedral (1226), one of its canons decided that Toledo’s splendor made it worthy of the attention of the world’s most powerful man: Blas Ortiz’s Summi templi Toletani, one of the earliest historical descriptions of any church in Europe, was written for the edification of the future Philip II, ruler of half of the world” (T. Nickson, Toledo Cathedral. Building Histories in Medieval Castile, University Park, PA, 2015, p. 4). The book opens with a preface to Alfonso Cedillo, portionary of the Toledo Cathedral and is followed by the dedication to Prince Philip of Girona and Asturias (later King Philip II of Spain). “El objetivo que perseguía Blas Ortiz con su Descripción era el de ofrecer al príncipe la posibilidad de satisfacer su curiosidad sobre la catedral y su edificio, recrearla ante sus ojos para que como por un cancel pudiera disfrutar de su historia y su arquitectura ya que en su última visita no había tenido el tiempo necesario para detenerse en sus innumerables riquezas” (R. Gonzálvez Ruiz & F. Pereda, La Catedral de Toledo 1549 según el Dr. Blas Ortiz: descripcion graphica y elegantissima de la S. Iglesia de Toledo, Madrid, 1999, p. 96). The cathedral of Toledo is one of the three 13th-century High Gothic cathedrals in Spain and is considered to be the magnum opus of the Gothic style in Spain and one of the greatest Gothic structures in Europe. It was begun in 1226 under the rule of Ferdinand III and the last Gothic contributions were made in the 15th century when, in 1493, the vaults of the central nave were finished during the time of the Catholic Monarchs. It was modeled after the Bourges Cathedral, although its five-nave plan is a consequence of the constructors’ intention to cover all of the sacred space of the former city mosque with the cathedral, and of the former sahn (courtyard) with the cloister. It also combines some characteristics of the Mudéjar style, mainly in the cloister, with the presence of multifoiled arches in the triforium. The spectacular incorporation of light and the structural achievements of the ambulatory vaults are some of its more remarkable aspects. It is built with white limestone from the quarries of Olihuelas, near Toledo. During the 16th century, various modifications were made to the cathedral according to the new styles: architectural works including magnificent portals and chapels, and sumptuous works of sculpture and painting.

The 16th century was the golden age of Toledo, which consequently came to be called the Imperial City. The best-informed and most active patrons lived during this century. It was the archbishop-governors who, in the absence of the kings, attended to the city and added to its magnificence. In 1493, at the end of the 15th century, Cardinal Mendoza supervised the closing of the last vault of the cathedral and expressed in his will his desire to be buried in the presbytery. In the first decade of the 16th century, the cenotaph was built in Renaissance style. This work is attributed to a team working under the leadership of Domenico Fancelli, although some authorities attribute it to Andrea Sansovino. Cardinal Cisneros occupied the cardinalate office for twenty-two years; under his influence and sponsorship important works were done (perhaps the most important was the Mozarabic chapel), realized by masters of the stature of Juan Francés (reja, or the ironwork screen, of the Mozarabic chapel), Enrique Egas, Juan de Borgoña (paintings of the Mozarabic chapel), and its grandmaster Pedro de Gumiel. Cisneros also ordered the magnificent main altarpiece to be built (the work of Diego Copín de Holanda) and the high cloister for the canonical community, plus the library. He was followed by Guillermo de Croy, the Chief of the Spanish treasury (‘contador mayor’), who never resided in Toledo. Alfonso de Fonseca y Acevedo (who had been archbishop of Santiago de Compostela) was the promoter of the New Kings chapel, which was planned by the architect Alonso de Covarrubias. With the ascent of Bishop Juan Pardo Tavera, the Toledan Renaissance reached its height of splendor. Under his governance, the choir of Alonso Berruguete and Felipe Vigarny, the interior façades of the transept, the chapel of Saint John or of the Treasure and other façades and adornments were constructed. During Archbishop Juan Martínez Siliceo’s time in office, the cathedral was adorned with the screen of the main chapel, the work of Francisco de Villalpando (cf. D. Suárez Quevedo, Revisitando a Serlio. Toledo y la traduccion de Villalpando, miradas, punctualizaciones, in: “Cartografías visuales y arquitectónicas de la modernidad: Siglos XV-XVIII”, S. Canalda i Llobet, C. Narváez Cases & J. Sureda, eds., Barcelona, 2011, pp. 292-297). Blas Ortiz was born in Villarrobledo in the bosom of a family that had already given an illustrious humanist, his uncle Alonso Ortiz de Urrutia (1455-1503). He studied philosophy,

along with his brother Pedro at the Alcalà University, and obtained a doctorate in canon and civil law. Around 1516, he became chaplain at the University of Salamanca in the Colegio Mayor de Santa Cruz of Valladolid. Later he was named custodian of the Bishopric of Calahorra, and was called to Vitoria by Cardinal Adrian Florensz (Hadrian of Utrecht) as his secretary and private chaplain. In March 1522, he began a journey to Rome (see his account in Itinerarium Adriani Sexti ab Hispania, 1546), accompanying the cardinal, who at that time was regent of Spain in the absence of Emperor Charles V and who was crowned as Pope Adrian VI in August. After the pope’s death Ortiz returned to Spain in September 1523. He obtained a sinecure in Toledo and became visitor of the Inquisition, his name being linked to many files related to inquisitorial processes, e.g. that of the humanist Juan de Vergara, professor of philosophy at the Alcalà University, who was charged of triple heresy. During the process, which lasted from 1533 to 1547, Ortiz showed his sympathies for Vergara and also influenced his subsequent acquittal. It seems that the relationship between the two humanists was so close that some authorities believed that Vergara had helped Ortiz to write the present work. As vicar-general of the archdiocese of Toledo he closely collaborated with the archbishops Alonso de Fonseca, Juan Pardo Tavera, and Juan Martínez Siliceo. Ortiz died in Toledo and according to his last will was buried in the parish church of San Blas in Villarrobledo (cf. R. Gonzálves Ruiz, Blas Ortiz y su mundo, in: “La Catedral de Toledo 1549 según el Dr. Blas Ortiz: descripcion graphica y elegantissima de la S. Iglesia de Toledo”, R. Gonzálvez Ruiz & F. Pereda, eds., Madrid, 1999, pp. 11-77). The present copy comes from the library of Valentín Carderera (Huesca 1796-Madrid 1880), a Spanish portrait painter of academic style. His most important activity was as investigator of ancient monuments and art historian. He also was the author of the first biography of Goya, whom surely he personally met. He was a governing member of the board at the Museo Real de Pintura y Escultura. He also became a member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, where he taught art history and had a chair at the Real Academia de la Historia. He was named honorary court painter during the reign of Isabel II (cf. M. García Guatas, Carderera: un ejemplo de artista y erudito romántico, in: “Artigrama”, 11, 1994-1995, pp. 425-450). Universal STC, no. 205597; R. Gonzálvez & F. Pereda, op. cit., p. 85; Pérez Pastor, La imprenta en Toledo, Madrid, 1887, no. 238; A. Palau, Manual del librero hispanoamericano, Barcelona, 1948-1987, no. 205597. $ 6,500.-

Library of Senator Jacopo Soranzo 23. SERAFINO DA RIMINI (fl. 16 cent.). Ethica, et politica sotto brevissime regole ritratte da don Serafino di Rimino Canonico Regolare Lateranense da due Orationi d’Isocrate in versi sciolti. Venice, Giovanni Antonio Rampazetto, 1584. from the

th

4to (195x140 mm). 25, (1 blank) leaves. Printer’s device on the title-page. Early 20th-century cardboards. On the front flyleaf verso facing the title-page is a long manuscript note, which states that this copy comes from the library of Senator Jacopo Soranzo: “Autore non riferito nè dal Quadrio, nè dal Crescimbeni, nè dal Fontanini nè da qualunque altro siasi bibliografo anteriore al Paitoni. Questo pure non ha mai veduta la presente operetta, e soltanto venne a di lui cognizione per averla trovata notata in alcune aggiunte manoscritte fate ad una copia della Biblioteca Italiana dell’Haym [...] Il presente esemplare era nella libreria del Senatore Jacopo Soranzo, venduta dai di lui Eredi nel 1780 in Padova. Un altro esemplare però ritrovavasi in Venezia nella Biblioteca di Giuseppe Smith ivi Console della Gran Bretagna…”. Wormholes in the lower outer corner of the first 13 leaves not affecting the text, some marginal foxing, a good copy. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION dedicated by the author to Vincenzo Gonzaga, Prince of Mantua. The work is divided into two parts. The first part contains thirty-six moral precepts taken from Isocrates’ oration to Demonicus; the second thirty-five political advices on how to rule kingdoms and republics, taken from Isocrates’ second oration to Nicocles. Both texts are written in loose verses. Edit 16, CNCE60406 (4 copies in Italy); Universal STC, 855992; OCLC, 179684701 (2 copies in America); S.F.W. Hoffmann, Bibliographisches Lexicon der gesammten Literatur der Griechen, Leipzig, 1839, II, p. 490. $ 350.-

ludic account of a fight between two knights

24. SUCCESSO di due cavalieri romani i quali combattendo una gentildonna: per haverla per moglie restano tuti due invitti... opera degna da alti cavalieri et di qualonche svegliato ingegno. N.pl., n.pr., 1573. 8vo (153x98 mm). (8) leaves. With a woodcut vignette on the title-page. Modern vellum over boards, ancient repair to the upper margin of the title-page not affecting the text, a good copy. APPARENTLY UNRECORDED PAMPHLET of a ludic account reported from Palermo, where two men, respectively members of the Orsini and Colonna families, fight to win the favor of a noble woman. The unique trace of a work with a similar title exists in the British Library, London, printed in Venice in 1605. $ 1,350.-

Bologna to Scandiano 25. TARINTI, Pierluigi (fl. 2 half of the 16 cent.). Satira... a suo fratello. Bologna, Alessandro Benacci, (between 1558 and 1591). satirical poem on a journey from

nd

th

4to (192x135 mm). (4) leaves. Old vellum, a fine copy. FIRST EDITION. In this long satirical poem, addressed by Tarinti to his brother, is described Tarinti’s pleasure ride from his place of domicile (probably Bologna) to Scandiano through Modena in a bright September day. He mentions the delicious food he had and the many people he met (emphasizing especially the beauty of the inn keeper’s wife, who host them near the river Secchia). In Modena, he stayed at the house of the noble Boschetti family. Edit 16, CNCE73131 (only one copy known; Archiginnasio, Bologna); Universal STC, no. 858090. $ 680.-

Ariosto’s Rodomonte 26. TELLUCCINI, Mario (fl. end of the 16 cent.). Le pazzie amorose di Rodomonte secondo, composte per Mario Teluccini, sopranominato il Bernia. Parma, Seth Viotti, 1568. the grandson of th

4to (200x150 mm). 218, (2) pp. Printer’s device on the title-page (unicorn watering); large, almost full-page, woodcut device at the end showing a unicorn fighting three snakes. Historiated woodcut initials. The Argomenti, at the beginning of every Canto, are set in a rich woodcut frame. Eigheenth-century vellum over boards, red morocco label with gilt title on spine, blue edges, marbled endpapers. Title-page slightly waterstained, otherwise a very good copy. FIRST EDITION, dedicated to Alessandro Farnese, duke of Parma and Piacenza, of a twenty-canto poem singing the love of Rodomonte di Sarza for the beautiful Lucefiamma, daughter of Meandro, wealthy lord of a castle on the Genoese Riviera. This work belongs to the group of poems inspired by the Orlando Furioso in which, however, the characters are not the same as in Ariosto’s poem, but rather their descendants. In the Pazzie amorose, the protagonist, a grandson of Ariosto’s Rodomonte, is a wicked character, who is contrasted by Fidelcaro, a positive hero, who in the end kills him (cf. G. Fumagalli, La fortuna dell’Orlando Furioso nel XVI secolo, Ferrara, 1912, p. 160). Mario Telluccini, a native of Popiglio (Pistoia), called ‘Il Bernia’, was active as a bookseller in Rome and an extempore poet in various Italian courts (e.g. Ferrara around 1543). He also wrote other chivalric epics: Paride e Vienna (Genoa, 1571), Artemidoro (Venice, 1566), and Erasto (Pesaro, 1566) (cf. G. Bertoni, Il Cieco di Ferrara e altri improvvisatori alla corte d’Este, in: “Il Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana”, 1929, XCIV, p. 277). Edit 16, CNCE39098; A. Cutolo, I romanzi cavallereschi in prosa e in rima del fondo Castiglioni presso la Biblioteca Braidense di Milano, Milan, 1944, 125; M. Beer, Romanzi di cavalleria: il ‘Furioso’ e il romanzo italiano del primo Cinquecento, Rome, 1987, p. 383; G. Melzi-P.A. Tosi, Bibliografia dei romanzi di cavalleria in versi e in prosa italiani, Milan, 1865, p. 283. $ 1,400.-

Sperone Speroni’s house 27. TOMITANO, Bernardino (1517-1576). Ragionamenti della lingua toscana, dove si parla del perfetto oratore, et poeta volgari,… divisi in tre libri. Nel primo si pruova la philosophia esser necessaria allo acquistamento della rhetorica et poetica. Nel secondo si ragiona de i precetti dell’oratore. Et nel terzo, delle leggi appartenenti al poeta, et al bene scrivere, si nella prosa, come nel verso. Venice, Giovanni Farri & fratelli, 1545. the literary conversations at

8vo (152x102 mm). 439, (5) pp. With the printer’s device on the title-page. Recent stiff vellum, lettering-piece on spine, inked title on lower edge. Provenance: on the title-page ownership’s inscription of the humanist Alfonso Cambi Importuni (Naples, 1535-1570). Cambi collaborated with Lucantonio Ridolfi to the edition of Petrarch’s Canzoniere published in Lyons in 1558; is the dedicatee of Galeazzo Florimonte’s Ragionamenti sopra l’Etica di Aristotile (Venice, 1567, see below in this catalogue); was a correspondant of Annibal Caro; figures as an interlocutor in the dialogue Il Rota, ovvero Dialogo delle Imprese by Scipione Ammirato (Naples, 1562) (cf. C. Mutini, Cambi, Alfonso, in: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, vol. 17, 1974, s.v.). Some light foxing, small stain and pen tests on last leaf verso, a fresh and genuine copy. FIRST EDITION. Bernardino Tomitano was a 24-year-old philosopher, when in 1541 he attended the ceremony during which his teacher, the famous scholar Sperone Speroni, was crowned prince of the Accademia degli Infiammati of Padua. In the two days following this event, scholars, academics, and poetry connoisseurs met at Speroni’s house to discuss about literature and language. Four years later, in 1545, Tomitano published a detailed account of those literary conversations on poetics and rhetorics in his Ragionamenti della lingua Toscana (cf. M.T. Girardi, Il sapere e le lettere in Bernardino Tomitano, Milan, 1995, pp. 3-5). “The Ragionamenti della lingua toscana of Bernardino Tomitano (1545) represents the first nearly complete ‘art of poetry’ in the present series of Platonic treatises; it also represents the most eclectic and in a sense the most typical studied thus far. If one were to read the three books of the Ragionamenti in reverse order, one would find in the third all the detailed treatment of the more particular aspects of the art, a treatment resting largely on Horace’s Ars poetica and on their rhetoricians but deriving certain essential

ideas from Aristotle. The second book deals largely with oratory, but even here the application of oratorical principles to poetry is constantly traced and all the examples are taken from poets; once again, the classical rhetoricians provide the distinctions and the rules. But in the first book, where Tomitano wishes to lay the philosophical foundations for all the art of writing, his source his Plato. And it is Plato appealed to on a much broader basis than was done by most of Tomitano’s contemporaries. For rather than begin with one of the favorite dicta…, he takes as his starting point Plato’s general concept of Ideas. Like the painter, the poet and the orator attempt to represent in the medium of the arts some perfect concept or Idea… If the poet is to succeed as a poet, he must therefore be something of a philosopher so that he may know the truths which he is going to imitate. The relationship of poetry to philosophy is indeed a complicated one. The business of philosophy is the discovery of truth; the business of poetry is the imitation of truth through the medium of fictions. But poetry does not imitate all truth, nor does it serve its ultimate ends in every part of its imitation. Of its two ends, pleasure and utility, it is the latter which involves philosophy. For the utility is both moral and intellectual in character, and it is found in moral and intellectual precepts scattered throughout the work” (B. Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance, Chicago, IL, 1961, pp. 264-265). I “Ragionamenti della lingua toscana di Tomitano, [furono] pubblicati nel 1545 a Venezia. I Ragionamenti furono ristampati l’anno successivo, sostanzialmente immutati se si eccettua l’aggiunta di una cinquantina di pagine contenenti un confronto tra la retorica di Aristotele e quella di Cicerone. L’opera, come si dirà, sarà poi rimaneggiata molti anni dopo e pubblicata con il titolo di Quattro libri della lingua thoscana. Si tratta in sostanza di un trattato in forma dialogica dove si riferiscono i discorsi degli accademici Infiammati su questioni di poetica, retorica e lingua in occasione dell’elezione di Speroni. Stando ai Ragionamenti, il nuovo principe impresse all’accademia un indirizzo piú marcatamente umanistico: abolí le lezioni su diritto e teologia, lasciando in vita solo quelle di filosofia, e focalizzò gli

studi sulla poesia in volgare, bandendo l’esegesi di testi classici” (M. Colombo, Bernardino Tomitano e i ‘Quattro libri della lingua thoscana, in: “Momenti del Petrarchismo veneto: cultura volgare e cultura classica tra Feltre e Belluno nei secoli XV-XVI, Atti del convegno di studi, Belluno-Feltre, 15-16 ottobre 2004”, P. Pellegrini, ed., Rome, 2005, p. 114; see also A. Daniele, Bernardino Tomitano: dai ‘Ragionamenti’, 1545-1546 ai ‘Quattro libri della lingua thoscana, in: “Museum Patavinum”, 1/1, 1983, pp. 67-85). Tomitano’s treatise is also important for the history of music, since he tried hard to forge a link between language and sound, what possibly led to an emergent consciousness of rhetorical issues in music among Venetian musicians of the time (cf. M. Feldman, City Culture and the Madrigal at Venice, Berkeley, CA, 1995, pp. 157-158). Bernardino Tomitano studied philosphy and medicine at the University of Padua, his hometown. In 1539 he was appointed as reader of Aristotle’s Organon at the university. From then on until 1563 he always taught, but never achieved to become ordinary professor. He was a member of the Accademia degli Infiammati (cf. A. Daniele, Sperone Speroni, Bernardino Tomitano e l’Accademia degli Infiammati di Padova, in: “Filologia Veneta”, 1989, pp. 1-53) and was in close relationship with Sperone Speroni, Pietro Bembo, Jacopo Sadoleto, Paolo Giovio, Bernardo Navagero, Girolamo Fracastoro, and Aldo Manuzio, with whom he shared the same view on poetics and rhetorics. He also wrote on mathematics and cosmography. In 1563 he left Padua and moved to Venice, where he worked as doctor and published the treatise De morbo gallico (cf. M.R. Davi, Bernardino Tomitano filosofo, medico, letterato, 1517-1576, profilo biografico e critico, Trieste, 1995, passim). Edit 16, CNCE39253; Universal STC, 859345.

$ 900.-

two important neo-Latin poetry collections bound together

28. VALERIANO, Giovanni Pierio (Giovanni Pietro Dalle Fosse, 1477-1558). Hexametri Odae et Epigrammata. Venice, Gabriele Giolito de’ Ferrari e Fratelli, 1550. (Bound with:) LAMPRIDIO, Benedetto (d. 1540)-AMALTEO, Giovanni Battista (1525-1573). Carmina. Venice, Gabriele Giolito de’ Ferrari e Fratelli, 1550. 8vo (148x94 mm). Valeriano: 136 leaves, with the printer’s device on the title-page and at the end. Lampridio/Amalteo: 84 leaves, with the printer’s device on the title-page. 18th-century calf, gilt back with five raised bands, red edges, marbled endpapers. Lower corner of the front panel a bit stained, some light dampstains and spots, but an attractive copy. I. FIRST EDITION of the most comprehensive collection of neo-Latin verses published during the author’s life-time. It is dedicated to Caterina de’ Medici (‘Serenissima Gallorum Regina’) and each section is accompanied by a short introduction by the printer Gabriele Giolito, who in one of them (leaf 33v) confirms the personal intervention of the author in editing the collection: ‘Quae quidem opuscula Pierius iuvenis admodum ediderat, mox diligentius recognoverat, putavi ea non abiicienda atque, ita ut recognita erant, aliis adiungi iussi’. The volume opens with a long georgic poem De milacis cultura, dedicated to Alessandro de’ Medici, which deals with the cultivation of the Indian Smilax plant. In numerous verses are commemorated his friends and colleagues from Venice, Rome and Padua: first of all various members of the Medici family; his teacher in Belluno Giosippo Faustino; Pietro Corsi, Latin poet and member of the Roman Academy; Pietro Mellini, Roman aristocrat and generous host and patron to his fellow humanists; the Venetian humanist Ermolao Barbaro; Andrea Marone, poet, who had composed verses for the Hypnerotomachia Po-

lifili; his patron Andrea Gritti; the Veronese humanist Dante il Terzo Alighieri, a descendant of the great Dante; the scholar Alberto Pio, lord of Carpi; his early patron Giovanni Francesco della Rovere and his relative Giovanni Battista; Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi da Bibiena; the Venetian humanist Marcantonio Sabellico; Cardinal Girolamo Aleandro; the poets Girolamo Bologni and Aurelio Augurelli; the scholar Theodorus Gaza; Agosto Valdo, professor of Greek in Rome; the humanist Blosio Palladio; the Venetian aristocrat Girolamo Donà, to whom Valeriano had dedicated his first collection of verses; the soldier and poet Michele Marullo; the anatomist Gabriele Zerbi, who was killed by the Turks; the scholar Aulo Giano Parrisio; Giovanni Calfurnio, humanist and professor at the University of Padua, who suffered a stroke and lived on for a short time paralyzed and speechless; and several others (cf. J. Haig Gaisser, Piero Valeriano on the Ill Fortune of Learned Men. A Renaissance Humanist and His World, Ann Marbor, MN, 1999, pp. 261-330; see also P. Pellegrini, Pierio Valeriano e la tipografia del Cinquecento, Udine, 2002, pp. 85-91). Pierio Valeriano (Giovanni Pietro Dalle Fosse), a native of Belluno, was the nephew of Urbano, author of an important Greek grammar. It was his uncle who brought him to Venice, where Urbano introduced him into the circle of Aldus Manutius and where he studied under such famous men as Valla, Lascaris and Sabellico. Around 1500 he made his way to Padua to study under the famous philosopher Leonico Tomeo, but also spent plenty of time in Venice. Here he corrected texts for Aldus and edited both Lactantius and Lorenzo Valla’s translation of the Iliad for the printer Tacuino. We know from the poem In sodales (see Praeludia, 1509) that at least five of Aldus’ closest associates (Paolo da Canal, Andrea Navagero, Trifon Bisanti, Andrea Marone, and Girolamo Borgia) belonged to some kind of poetic sodality in Padua during these years. In 1506 he left Padua ‘by the force of necessity’ as he explains in his parting letter to his patron Andrea Gritti, and took up residence in the little village of Olivé near Verona, were he lived for the next three years, presumably as a tutor. When the troops of the League of Cambrai invaded the Venetian territory in 1509, Valeriano had to leave Padua, briefly returned to Belluno, but found it was laid waste by the imperial troops. At the eve of his departure for Rome he published in August 1509 his first book of poetry, the Praeludia. In Rome he became a favourite

of Pope Leo X, who entrusted to him the education of his nephews Ippolito and Alessandro de’ Medici. In his later life he retired to Padua, where he devoted himself completely to his studies. His most important work was Hieroglyphica (1556), the great summation of hieroglyphic material in the Renaissance (cf. G. Bustico, Due umanisti veneti: Urbano Bolzanio e Piero Valeriani, in: “Civiltà moderna”, 4, 1932, pp. 86-103). Edit 16, CNCE27007; S. Bongi, Annali di Gabriel Giolito de’ Ferrari da Trino, stampatore a Venezia, Rome, 1890-1897, II, 301-302; A. Buzzati, Bibliografia bellunese, Venice, 1890, p. 12, no. 16; P. Pellegrini, op. cit., pp. 156-157, no. XXIV. II. FIRST EDITION. Hailed by his contemporaries at his death as the new Pindar, Lampridio is of first importance as an experimenter in Latin versification and is usually remembered as the first Italian poet who attempted to imitate Pindar’s strophic verse in Latin and to achieve what Horace himself hoped for, but despaired of accomplishing true Pindaric imitation (cf. C. Maddison, Apollo and the Nine: A History of the Ode, Baltimore, MD, 1960, pp. 105-109). Benedetto Lampridio, born sometime before 1500, was educated by Marcus Masurus in Padua and probably came to Rome at the accession of Pope Leo X in 1513. He was one of the teachers at the Collegio dei Greci, the school that Leo sponsored on the Quirinal in Angelo Colocci’s villa and for which Leo at Pietro Bembo’s behest brought to Rome both Musurus, Lampridio’s old teacher, and Joannes Lascaris, the celebrated Greek scholar, to whom a long poem is dedicated. Lampridio was involved in Leo’s project for the development of a printing press in Rome that might rival Aldus’ at Venice. The first book to come from the new press in 1515 was a copy of Pindar’s odes, for which Lampridio wrote a commendatory epigram in Greek. In 1521 he left Rome to teach Greek at Padua, where he counted Michel de l’Hospital among his pupils and perhaps through him had some influence on the Pléiade poets. In 1536 he became tutor to Francesco, son of

Federico Gonzaga duke of Mantua, and also the son of Pietro Bembo was among his pupils. His odes are of interest to us both as Pindaric imitations and as cultural and historical documents, addressed mostly to actual living persons, that tell us about the literary world in Rome, taking us from about 1513, the beginning of Leo’s golden age, to the accession of Adrian VI and Clement VII, the sack of Rome in 1527, and finally the reconstruction of Rome with Paul III. The longest and most elaborate ode is that on Pietro Mellini’s villa and is most representative for his evocation of the poetic sodalities at Rome in his time (cf. S.P. Revard, Lampridio and the Poetic Sodalities in Rome in the 1510a and 1520s, in: “Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Bariensis, Bari, 1994”, Tempe AZ, 1998, pp. 499-507). Although widely circulated during his lifetime, Lampridio’s poems were not printed until 1550, in the present edition, ten years after his death. Pierio Valeriano refers to Lampridio both in his prose and poetry and addressed a witty epigram to the philosophic sodality of poets in Padua, in which he names Lampridio among the eight Muses and asks that he himself be admitted as a ninth (Hexamentri, 1550, l. 126v). At the end of the volume are printed for the first time some verses by Giovanni Battista Amalteo (1525-1573). He studied at Padua, where he made the acquaintance of Pietro Aretino, Sperone Speroni, Paolo Manuzio, Girolamo Fracastoro, and others. After some diplomatic appointments and a long travel through Europe, he became secretary to the Republic of Ragusa, but soon moved to Rome, where he first entered the services of Carlo Borromeo and later was appointed private chamberlain to pope Pius V. These verses were published without the approbation of their author and are the only ones in Latin published during his lifetime; only a short poem in Italian dedicated to Marcantonio Colonna and the victory at Lepanto was issued shortly before he died (cf. L. Berra, Un umanista del Cinquecento al servizio degli uomini della controriforma, in: “L’Arcadia”, I, 1917, pp. 20-48). In the present copy the dedication by Ludovico Dolce is the one written in Latin to Bernardo Zane. There is a variant issue with a dedication in Italian to Collatino da Collalto (cf. S. Bongi, op. cit., p. 288). Edit 16, CNCE45474; Bongi, op. cit., I, 288-289.

$ 850.-

the Jesuits in Japan

29. VALIGNANI, Alessandro (1539-1606). Lettera del P. Alessandro Valignano. Visitatore della Compagnia di Giesù nel Giappone e nella Cina de’ 10. D’Ottobre del 1599. Al R.P. Claudio Aquaviva Generale della medesima compagnia. Rome, Luigi Zanetti, 1603. (offered with:) PASIO, Francesco (1554-1612). Lettera annua di Giappone scritta nel 1601 e mandata dal P. Francesco Pasio V. provinciale al M.R.P. Claudio Acquaviva Generale della Compagnia di Giesù. Rome, Luigi Zanetti, 1603. (And:) PASIO, Francesco (1554-1612). Copia d’una breve relatione della Christianità di Giappone, del mese di marzo del 1598. insino ad ottob. del medesimo anno, et della morte di Taicosama signore di detto regno. Scritta del P. Franceso Pasio, al M.R.P. Claudio Aquaviva Generale della Compagnia di Giesù. Et dalla portoghese tradotta nella lingua italiana dal P. Gasparo Spitilli, di Campli della Compagnia medesima. Rome, Luigi Zanetti, 1601. Three volumes, 8vo (152x101 mm); modern boards, red edges; 102, (2 blank) pp. + 77, (1), (2 blank) pp. + 109, (1), (2 blank) pp. Jesuits’ emblem on the title-pages. Ownership’s entry on the title-page of Pasio’s Copia, partly trimmed. Some light browning and marginal foxing, all in all nice copies. I. FIRST EDITION. At l. C5r, with a separate title-page, begins the Sopplimento dell’annua del 1600. Nel qual si da raguaglio... infino a febraio del 1601. Scritto al r.p. Claudio Acquaviva... dal p. Valentino Carvaglio. Alessandro Valignani or Valignano was a Jesuit missionary born in Chieti, who played an important role in the introduction of Catholicism to the Far East, and especially to Japan. Valignano joined the Society of Jesus in 1566, and was sent to East Asia in 1573 as Visitor of Missions in the Indies. It was his responsibility to examine and whenever necessary reorganize mission structures and methods throughout India, China and Japan.

Valignano formed a basic strategy for Catholic proselytism, which is usually called “adaptationism”. He attempted to avoid cultural frictions by making a compromise with local customs that other missionaries viewed as conflicting with Catholic values. His strategy was in contrast to those of mendicant orders including Franciscans and Dominicans, whom Valignano worked hard to block from entering Japan and later lead to the Chinese Rites controversy. Valignano left Macau for Japan in July 1579, leaving behind instructions for Michele Ruggieri, who was to arrive within days. Once Ruggieri started studying Chinese and realized the immensity of the task, he wrote to Valignano, asking him to send Matteo Ricci to Macau as well, to share the work. Ricci joined him in Macau on August 7, 1582. Together, the two were to become the first European scholars of China and the Chinese language. Valignano made the first visit to Japan from 1579 to 1582. In 1581, he wrote Il Cerimoniale per i Missionari del Giappone to set forth guidelines for Jesuits. In the writing, he mapped Jesuit hierarchy to that of Zen Buddhists even though he detested them. He claimed that, in order not to be despised by Japanese, every Jesuit should behave according to the class he belonged to. Such a luxurious life and authoritarian attitudes among Jesuits in Japan were criticized not only by rival mendicant orders but also by some Jesuits. In fact, Valignano remained in a minority within the Jesuits in Japan. On his first arrival in Japan, Valignano was horrified by what he considered to be, at the least, negligent, and at the worst, abusive and non-Christian practices on the part of mission personnel. He immediately began to reform many aspects of the mission. Language study had always been one of the core problems for the mission. By 1595, Valignano could boast in a letter that not only had the Jesuits printed a Japanese grammar and dictionary, but also several books (mostly the lives of saints and martyrs) entirely in Japanese. The need for a natively trained clergy was obvious to Valignano, and so, in 1580, a recently emptied Buddhist monastery in Arima province was converted into a nascent seminary. There, twenty-two young Japanese converts began to the process of instruc-

tion towards holy orders. The process was repeated two years later at Azuchi, where the seminarians numbered thirty-three. Valignano’s purpose is quite clear. The seminaries were typical Jesuit institutions of humanistic education and theological exploration but their style of living was wholly Japanese. They were carefully designed to blend, as much as possible, Japanese sensibilities with European ideology. As the scale of the mission began to expand rapidly, financial difficulties began to arise. All of the Jesuit institutions: the seminaries, the schools, the printing presses and the missions required money to finance. In 1580, when Father Vilela converted the daimyo Ōmura Sumitada who controlled the port of Nagasaki, the port, which was then merely a small fishing village, was ceded as a gift to the control of the Society, as was the fortress in the harbor. Under Jesuit control, Nagasaki would grow from a town with only one street to an international port rivaling the influence of Goa or Macau. Jesuit ownership of the port of Nagasaki gave the Society a concrete monopoly in taxation over all imported goods coming into Japan. This breach of ecclesiastical practice did not go unnoticed by the heads of other European missions in the area, or by those who make their living via inter-Asiatic trade. Eventually, the Pope was forced to intervene, and, in 1585, the Holy See ordered an immediate cessation of all mercantile activities by the Society. In his last years Alessandro Valignano exercised his position as Visitor by overseeing all of the Jesuit missions in Asia from the major Portuguese port of Macau, but his primary focus was always on the Japanese mission. By 1600, the Jesuit mission there was in decline because of persecution from the Kanpaku Toyotomi Hideyoshi and later, most severely, under the Tokugawas. Valignano died in Macau in January 1606. His legacy is extraordinary. The four Japanese who visited the Pope in 1586 (the first official Japanese embassy to western Europe) were sent by Valignano. He founded the St. Paul’s Jesuit college in Macau. He visited Japan three times: in 1579-1581; in 1590-1592; and in 1598-1603. Valignano paved the way for a closer relationship between Asian and European peoples by advocating equal treatment of all human beings. He was a great admirer of the Japanese people and

envisioned a future when Japan would be one of the leading Christian countries in the world (cf. J.F. Schutte, Valignano’s Mission Principles for Japan, St. Louis, 1980; and U. App, The Birth of Orientalism, Philadelphia, 2010 pp. 18-24, 139-146). II-III. FIRST EDITIONS. Francesco Pasio, a native of Bologna, was a Jesuit missionary who worked in a number of places in East Asia, including Goa (1578), Malacca (1582), Japan (1583), and Macao, where he died in 1612. His superior was father Alessandro Valignano. He was Vice-provincial of the Order in China and Japan from 1600 to 1611. De Backer-Sommervogel, VIII, col. 405; VI, coll. 327-328; H. Cordier, Bibliotheca Japonica, Paris, 1912, pp. 235, 241, and 223; Catalogo unico, IT\ ICCU\TO0E\123323; IT\ICCU\UM1E\009778; IT\ICCU\CFIE\015903. $ 9,800.-

Florentine Baptistery designed by Vasari for the baptism of Francesco de’ Medici’s first child 30. VASARI, Giorgio (1511-1574). Descrizione dell’apparato fatto nel tempio di S. Giovanni di Fiorenza per lo Battesimo della Signora prima figliuola dell’Illustrissimo et Eccellentissimo S. Principe di Fiorenza, et Siena don Francesco Medici, e della Serenissima Reina Giavanna [!] d’Austria. Florence, Heirs of Bernardo Giunta, 1568. the festival decoration in the

8vo (166x98 mm). 24 pp. Head-piece and Medici’s coat-of-arms on the title-page. Woodcut initial on p. 3. Early 20th-century half morocco, gilt title on spine. On the front pastedown engraved bookplate of Pietro Ginori Conti; on the front flyleaf embossed stamp of Giannalisa Feltrinelli. Light foxing on the margin of the first leaves, otherwise a very good copy. FIRST EDITION. This eye-witness account on the festival for the baptism of Francesco de’ Medici’s first child, is written in the form of letter, dated 28 February 1567 (more florentino, i.e. 1568) and addressed by Vasari to Guglielmo Sangalletti, treasurer and secret councilor of the Pope. “In his Libro delle Ricordanze, Giorgio Vasari entered a notice for the festival decoration in the Florentine Baptistery which he made in early 1568, the ‘apparato’ in the ‘chiesa di San Giovanni di Fiorenza, ordinato per il battesimo della signora Leonora, figlia del principe’. Vasari adds that he was responsible for the entire project, ‘tutto fu disegniato et ordinato da me’. The Descrizione describes the festival decoration created by Vasari for the Baptism of the first born child of Francesco de’ Medici, Prince of Florence and Siena, and his wife, Giovanni d’Austria, in the Baptistery of Florence, the church of San Giovanni, in the presence of assembled dignitaries and with a large public in attendance.

The text published here: Descrizione dell’apparato fatto nel Tempio di S. Giovanni di Fiorenza per lo battesimo della Signora prima figliuola dell’Illustrissimo, et Eccellentissimo S. Principe di Fiorenza, et Siena Don Francesco Medici, e della Serenissima Reina Giovanna D’Austria (Firenze: Giunti, 1568), is the printed description of this ‘apparato’, published by Vasari at the time of the Baptism on February 29, 1568 (stile comune). It takes the form of a letter addressed to Guglielmo Sangalletti, an official serving the reigning pope, Pius V (Michele Ghislieri, 1504-1572; papacy: 1566-1572). Nevertheless, the epistolary form is not determinative of the form and articulation of the text, which is a fairly straight-forward exposition of the iconographic, decorative, and dynastic components of the apparatus, framed by an epistolary salutation and the appropriate epistolary closures, and with an address to Sangalletti. Thus the text does not belong to the genre of personal correspondence written primarily to be sent to and read by the addressee; nor does it fall into the category of ‘lettere famigliari’, informal letters, often written with the intention to publish them. It belongs instead to a category in which the letter form is used for texts written to be read by a larger public and with the intention to disseminate a variety of information and messages, and indeed it might be assigned to the category of ‘festival books’. Such letters as Vasari’s, written in the vernacular, constitute a widespread genre of Italian literature in the sixteenth century. A number of the surviving early letters written by Vasari belong to this category; many of them describe paintings he has made or ‘apparati’ similar to the present one. These letters doubtless enjoyed circulation in manuscript form, and Vasari’s letters to Pietro Aretino, containing such descriptions, began to be published in the 1550s. In fact, it was the printed opuscule containing Vasari’s letter that was sent to Sangalletti, and not the letter written in Vasari’s own hand. Vasari’s letter, through its publication in print, was addressed to a general, undefined public, and, even as a fictive letter, the true recipient was probably not so much Sangalletti himself as his master, His Holiness Pius V, as Vasari himself seems to imply at the end of his missive, when he urges Sangalletti to kiss the Holy Foot of ‘Sua Beatitudine’ in the name of Giorgio Vasari.

The Descrizione dell’apparato fatto nel Tempio di S. Giovanni di Fiorenza opens with a brief ‘art historical’ treatment of the ‘tempio di San Giovanni’ (cf. G. Vasari, Le opere, con nuove annotazioni e commenti, G. Milanesi, ed., Florence, 1878, I, pp. 333-334), and then it discusses ‘le pitture’ that were made for the occasion – and these constituted the most highly elaborated component of the ‘apparato’ – to conclude with an account of the ‘ornamenti di dentro’ and of the ‘apparato fatto di fuori’. The latter consisted, above all, of familial heraldic coats-of-arms and of inscriptions. The paintings of the interior follow a characteristic invention, realized on the basis of the ‘parere di monsignor lo spedalingo degli Innocenti’, Don Vincenzo Borghini. Entering San Giovanni through the main portal, one found, at the left, seven large figures, painted as if they were made of bronze, and these seven figures represented seven personages of the Old Testament. Through their words (quoted in inscriptions) and their actions they showed that the ‘grazia del santo battesimo essere stata nella legge vecchia in molti modi anteveduta e figurata et con vivi oracoli pronunziata e promessa’. And, similarly, at the right, were seven more figures of the same size, also ‘finte di bronzo’, and these figures represented seven personages of the new testament, ‘che hanno corrispondenza et convenienza con quelle contrapposte del vecchio testamento’. And, they show clearly that nothing has been promised in the Old Testament that has not been realized in the New Testament, and that no grace has been given by God to his new holy church (‘sua santa nuova chiesa’) which was not already foreseen, announced, and, indeed, adumbrated in the old testament. All of this comes to a conclusion in and is drawn together in the ‘Apostolica sentenza’, that He is one God, one faith, and one baptism, and that the grace of this baptism was foreseen, prefigured, and predicted by the old saints, and that it was received, enjoyed, and preached by the new saints. Thus the iconographic programme takes the form of a highly developed typological cycle of paintings. The selection of subjects and themes included in Borghini’s programme not only follows this doctrinal approach, obviously favored by Borghini, but it also conforms to the simple, if fundamental princi-

ple of decorum that underlies the largest part of Renaissance decorations. The saints and the inscriptions which are included in the decoration are all fitting to and corresponding to the place, the Baptistery, and to the occasion of Baptism. Nearly all the pictures evoke the water of baptism, and there are numerous allusions to water and to baptism in the inscriptions. The didascalic intention of the programme, which is repeatedly underlined by the inscriptions, proceeds according to a structure which is not dissimilar to the ‘method of loci’, that is to the technique of mnemotechnics, in its repeated pairing of images and places in a way consonant with an artificial memory structure. The most public part of the ‘apparato’, that found on the exterior of the Baptistery, is dedicated nearly exclusively to the heraldic arms of the principal actors participant in the occasion and the attendant ceremonies… Vasari certainly received written instructions for the programme of the ‘apparato’ from Vincenzo Borghini. Vasari himself says this at two points. Clearly the Latin inscriptions stem entirely from the pen of Borghini, and again Vasari comes very close to stating this explicitly. But more generally, in this instance, it is not a question of informal verbal advice which Borghini spoke to Vasari. Because Borghini provided Vasari with a written text containing his invention, as he had done on many previous occasions, elements of Borghini’s written draft are doubtless taken over in the text of the Descrizione dell’apparato. The paternity of the iconographical programme clearly belongs to Borghini. But this does not prima facie justify assigning the authorship of the text to Borghini. Vasari credits it to himself, signing the letter and sending it to his mentor in Rome, and, while it is true that the letter is a description of his painting and decorations, Vasari also speaks directly, with his own voice, in the text. The use of semi-public letters describing his paintings was a publicistic measure employed by Vasari from a very early date. The vocabulary of words used in the text (‘lessico’) only very rarely diverges from that used in Vasari’s Vite of the same year” (Ch. Davis, Introduction, in: G. Vasari, “Descrizione dell’apparato fatto nel Tempio di S. Giovanni di Fiorenza…”, Fontes 6, Heidelberg, 2008, pp. 8-19). Adams, V-294; Edit 16, CNCE28313; Universal STC, 862079; D. Moreni, Bibliografia storico-ragionata della Toscana, Florence, 1805, II, p. 432; A. Collier Minor & B. Mitchell, A Renaissance entertainment: festivities for the marriage of Cosimo I, Duke of Florence, in 1539, Columbia, MO, 1968, p. 91. Sold

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